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Stories of 
Old New Haven 

(ILLUSTRATED) 



BY 

ERNEST H. BALDWIN, Ph. D. 

Instructor in History, Hillhouse High School, New 
Haven, Conn., and Lecturer in History, Yale University. 



THE 

JSibbcy Press 

PUBLISHERS 

114 

FIFTH AVENUE 

Iiondon NEW YORK JHontPeal 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 



Two Copies Received 

FEB 14 1903 

^opyright Entry 

CU/S fiJ XXc N 

COPY A. 






Copyright, 1902, 
By Ernest Hickok Baldxvin. 



I 



DEDICATED TO 
H. I. B., 
WHOSE PURITAN ANCESTOR LANDED AT 
QUINNIPIAC IN 1638, AND WHOSE 
PATERNAL GRANDFATHER MADE VAL- 
UABLE CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE HIS- 
TORICAL LITERATURE OF THE NEW 
HAVEN COLONY. 






CONTENTS. 

PAGE. 

Preface 7 

Introduction. — Why the Puritans Left 

England , 11 

CHAPTER I. 
How Some Puritans Left England and 

Went to Quinnipiac 17 

CHAPTER H. 
How the Founders of New Haven Built a 

City Four-Square 30 

CHAPTER HL 
How Momaugin Sold Quinnipiac 44 

CHAPTER IV. 
How the Laws of Moses Became the 

Laws of New Haven 55 

CHAPTER V. 

How a Great Ship Went Out Through the 
Ice and Came Back in a Summer 
Cloud 71 



CHAPTER VI. 
How New Haven Hid the Judges Who 

Condemned a King- to Death 84 

CHAPTER VH. 

How New Plaven Came to Be in the State 

of Connecticut lOl 

CHAPTER VHL 

How New Haven Became the Home of 

Yale College 118 

CHAPTER IX. 
How the Market-place Became the Green 
and the Many Changes It Has 
Seen 133 

CHAPTER X. 
How New Haven Celebrated the Fourth 

of July in the Year 1779 149 

CHAPTER XI. 
How New Haven Defended the Mendi 

Men 164 

CHAPTER XII. 
How the People of New Haven Lived in 

Colonial Days 181 

Appendix 195 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 









PAGE. 


John Davenport i8 


The Landing at Quinnipiac in 1638 


• 32 


Momaugin — His Mark 


• 52 


Mantowese — His Mark 






• 52 


Stocks .... 






62 


The Phantom Ship . 






82 


Judges' Cave . 






96 


An Old Charter 






. 102 


The Old Brick Row 






132 


The Market Place in 1639 






136 


Hillhouse Avenue 






142 


The Green in 1902 . 






. 148 


An Old Wellsweep . 






. 184 


The Half-mile Square 






196 



PREFACE. 

The following stories do not pretend to 
give a detailed history of New Haven from 
the date of its founding to the present time. 
They contain, in simple language, accounts 
of only those events and incidents connected 
with its history which are of chief importance 
and general interest. They are designed, 
primarily, to interest and instruct those boys 
and girls whose homes are situated in or near 
that old New England city or whose ances- 
tors came from there. New Haven is a city 
of fine historic traditions, is more than two 
hundred and sixty years old and widely 
famed. A knowledge of its history and of 
the hieh-minded men who made it what it 



8 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

is, cannot fail to prompt feelings of gratitude 
and pride, and inspire the younger genera- 
tion with an ambition to protect its fair name 
and preserve its noble institutions. 

In the preparation of these stories both 
primary and secondary sources have been 
used. Among these should be mentioned: 
The New Haven Colony Records, the pub- 
lications of the New Haven Colony Histori- 
cal Society, Atwater's History of The Colony; 
of New Haven, Levermore's Republic of 
New Haven, Bacon's Historical Discourses, 
Blake's Chronicles of the New Haven Green, 
Bartlett's Historical Sketches, and Kingsley's 
Historical Discourse. 

The author desires to acknowledge his in- 
debtedness to those who have given aid and 
encouragement in the preparation of these 
stories. In this connection special mention 
should be made of Dr. Stuart H. Rowe, Prin- 
cipal of the Lovell School District, New Ha- 



PREFACE. 9 

ven, for his valuable suggestions regarding 
their form and substance ; and Mr. A. H. 
Baldwin, of Washington, D. C., for the cover 
design and other original drawings illustrat- 
ing the book. 

New Haven, Conn., September 29, 1902. 



INTRODUCTION, 
Why the Puritans Left England. 

In the days when our forefathers left their 
homes across the sea and came to New Eng- 
land, old England was not a very happy coun- 
try to live in ; at least a good many of the 
English people did not think it was. The 
Stuart kings ruled England then and they 
were very unwise and unjust. They believed 
that God had made them kings ; and so, they 
thought it was right for them to do what- 
ever they pleased, and that the people ought 
to obey them willingly. 

Now in those days all the churches of 
England were supported by taxes laid on the 
people, just as public schools are supported 



12 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

in our country now-a-days. Besides that 
everybody had to go to church and worship 
God in the way the King- and his Bishops 
ordered. But there were some people who 
did not hke the way the church services were 
conducted. They even beheved that some of 
the forms and ceremonies used in the wor- 
ship were contrary to the teaching of the 
Bible and therefore wrong. These people 
tried to reform or purify the church, and so 
were called Puritans. 

When James I, who was the first Stuart 
king, became ruler of England in the year 
1604, these Puritans asked him to make some 
changes in the church worship and do away 
with the forms and ceremonies they disliked. 
But the king thought he knew what was best 
and obstinately refused to do what they wish- 
ed. More than that, he threatened to " har- 
ry them out of the land " if they didn't wor- 
ship in the way required by law. 



INTRODUCTION. I3 

Some of these people thought it wrong to 
obey the king's command and left the Eng- 
lish Church to worship by themselves in the 
way they thought was right. So they be- 
came known as Separatists, because they 
separated from the English Church. But 
King James was true to his word and did 
harry them out of the land. They went to 
Holland first, but later, came as Pilgrims to 
the new world and settled Plymouth in the 
year 1620, 

Those called Puritans remained in the 
English Church patiently hoping that the re- 
forms they wished would be made sometime. 
But they were cruelly treated by the king. 
A court called the Court of High Commis- 
sion fined and imprisoned them if they said 
anything against the regular forms of wor- 
ship or met by themselves to worship in a 
different way. Ministers who were known 
to be, or suspected of being, Puritans, were 



14 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

arrested and kept in horrible prisons until 
they promised to give up their Puritan ideas. 
If they refused, their churches were taken 
away from them and they were made to suf- 
fer great hardships. 

But this was not the only reason so many 
of the English people were unhappy. They 
suffered in another way. When King James 
wanted more money than Parliament gave 
him (and he always did) he taxed the people 
without their consent. Now this was a viola- 
tion of that famous document called " Magna 
Charta" in which an earlier English king had 
agreed to lay no taxes upon the people with- 
out the consent of Parliament. But King 
James did not care about that. If anyone 
refused to pay these unjust taxes or loan the 
King money (which he never intended to 
pay back), he was taken before a court called 
the " Star Chamber " and fined heavily or 
put in prison. The judges of this court were 



INTRODUCTION. I5 

very careful to do just what the King wished 
whether it was right or not. 

When King James I died in 1625 and his 
son Charles became king, the Puritans hoped 
for better times. They were greatly disap- 
pointed for the new King was more obstinate 
and tyrannical than his father, and they were 
worse off than before. It was dangerous to 
speak or write against the church ceremonies 
or complain of the acts of the King. Those 
who dared to do so had their ears cut off 
or their tongues cut out. 

Rather than suffer such cruelties many 
Puritans left England and sought homes in 
a new land where they could worship God 
in their own way. Dear as their native land 
was to them, their religion was more dear and 
they chose to suffer exile in the new world 
than do what they believed was wrong. In 
1628 some wealthy Puritans under the leader- 
ship of John Winthrop, John Cotton and 



l6 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Thomas Hooker, formed what was called the 
" Company of the Massachusetts Bay." The 
King gave them a charter for he was very 
willing to get rid (>^ trrjiiblesome subjects and 
have his new lands across the Atlantic set- 
tled. Then they came to New England and 
founded the town of Boston in 1630. Among 
those wdio helped to form this company and 
spent time and money to make it a success, 
were two men whose names became famous 
later as the founders of the colony of New 
Haven. Those men were Jolin Davenport 
and Theophilus Eaton. 



STORIES 
OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

CHAPTI'.k' I. 

How Some Puritans Left England and 
Went to Quinnipiac. 

Nearly llircc hundred years n^o tlicre lived 
in the city of Coventry, ne.-ir the renter f)f 
Kn^land, Iwo l)C)ys named jolm Davenport 
and 'riico])liiliis I',;ilon. Tlie f;itlier of yonnt^ 
J^avcnport was mayor f>f the city and Mr. 
Katon was the minister there. The boys 
were schoolmates and pfreat friends. This 
frietidship lastefl to the enrl rtf iheir lives atid 
li.'id a rood deal to do with tlie fonndin;-; of 
the city of New Haven. 

Mayor Davenport's son was a briji^ht young 
boy and a good scholar. When he was six- 



l8 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

teen years old he was sent to Oxford Col- 
lege, and, later, became a minister of the 
English Church. Mr. Eaton wanted his boy 
to become a minister, too, but Theophilus 
thought he would rather be a merchant. So 
he went to London and, in a few years, be- 
came very rich. Thus the two boys became 
separated ; but they did not forget each other 
and before many years they were together 
again. 

In the year 1624, just before King James 
I died, John Davenport became the minister 
of St. Stephen's church in Coleman street, 
London. He was then twenty-seven years 
old. People liked to hear him preach, and 
his church was always filled. Among the 
rich merchants who went to church there 
was Mr. Davenport's old friend, Theophilus 
Eaton. He belonged to a wealthy trading 
company and had travelled through the Baltic 
Sea. At one time he was the Ambassador of 
King James at the Court of Denmark. It 
may be that he had something to do with 




JKIIN n.WKM'OK 1. 
From a pictiiy,- in /•ossrssion of )'nlc Vuh't'tsity. 



SETTLEMENT AT QUINNIPIAC. I9 

making- his old schoolmate minister of St. 
Stephen's church. 

It was not long before both Mr, Davenport 
and Mr. Eaton became strong Puritans. 
In 1628 they helped to form the Massachu- 
setts Bay Company although they were not 
then ready to leave England themselves; for 
they had not yet suffered from the injustice 
of the King. Still they were very willing to 
help others who wanted to go to New Eng- 
land. A few years later they were very glad 
to go themselves, and this is the way it came 
about. 

In the year 1633 King Charles I made Wil- 
liam Laud Archbishop of Canterbury. Now 
the Archbishop of Canterbury was the high- 
est officer in the English Church. It was his 
business to see that the laws of the Church 
were obeyed. This William Laud hated the 
Puritans and everyl)ody knew that he would 
treat them very harshly. So far Mr. Daven- 
port had escaped punishment, for not many 
knew that he was a Puritan. But William 
Laud found it out before he was made Arch- 



20 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

bishop. Mr. Davenport soon learned that it 
would not be safe for him to stay in England. 
So before he could be arrested he fled to 
Holland. He went to Amsterdam where he 
preached for several years. But he did not 
like it there and wanted to be with his own 
people and friends. Just about that time 
Reverend John Cotton wrote him a letter 
from Boston urging him to come there. So 
in 1636, disguising himself as a country gen- 
tleman, he went back to England to see if he 
could get some of his friends to go with 
him to New England. 

Now it so happened that Mr. Eaton want- 
ed to go, too, for his brother, Samuel Eaton, 
who was a Puritan minister, had been arrest- 
ed and put in prison by the Court of High 
Commission. Although he was freed again 
it was not safe for any of the family to remain 
in England longer. 

Mr. Eaton was a rich man ; and if the 
King learned that he was a Puritan, he would 
find some way to get his money. 

There were a good many other Puritans 



SETTLEMENT AT OUINNIPIAC. 21 

who were anxious to go to New England at 
that time, also, for they were being treated 
more cruelly than ever by Archbishop Laud. 
Besides they wanted to bring up their chil- 
dren in the Puritan faith. To do that they 
must live in a land where they could worship 
God in their own way. 

Under the leadership of Mr. Davenport 
and Mr. Eaton a Company was formed to go 
to New England and found a new colony. 
People from different parts of England join- 
ed it. There were a good many from Lon- 
don and some from Yorkshire in the northern 
part of England. Others were from Here- 
fordshire near Wales. Still others came 
from Kent in the South of England. Many 
of them were merchants, but some of them 
were country gentlemen and farmers. 

It was not an easy matter to get awa}'' 
from England in 1637, for when the King 
found that wealthy Puritans were taking a 
great deal of money from the country he 
tried to stop them ; and Archbishop Laud 
would not let them get away and escape pun- 



22 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

ishment if he could help it. It is certain that 
Mr. Davenport and j\Ir. Eaton did not let 
them know they were going. As it was they 
had a great deal of trouble in hiring ships 
to take them across the ocean. But they 
finally got two. The name of one was the 
Hector. 

It was quite an undertaking to move from 
old England to New England in those days. 
People had to take with them nearly every- 
thing they would need in the new settlement. 
There were then no stores in New England 
where they could buy everything. So they 
had to take tables and chairs, beds and pil- 
lows, blankets and clothing, plates and knives, 
books and candles, hammers and saws, axes 
and shovels and numerous other things. 
They packed them up in trunks and boxes 
and bundles and stowed them away in the 
hold of their ship. Sometimes they carried 
bricks to build chimneys. Very often they 
took cows and sheep, for they must have 
milk and wool. So it was a busy time get- 
ting ready to go. 



SETTLKMKNT AT Q I' I N N I P I A C. 23 

Then there was a great deal of business to 
settle up before they could leave. There 
were debts to collect and bills to pay. 
Things they could not carry with them must 
be sold or given to friends and neighbors. 
At last there were " goodbyes " to say, and 
the parting from friends and relatives they 
never expected to see again, for they were 
leaving the homeland forever, to live and die 
and be buried in a strange country. 

The good ship Hector and her companion, 
bearing those who were destined to found 
New Haven, set sail from London sometime 
in April, 1637. The voyage across the At- 
lantic in those days was a very long and tire- 
some one. The ships were small and uncom- 
fortable. It was often cold and rainy and 
the wind whistled through the rigging so 
shrilly it frightened the children. Of course 
many were seasick. The food was bad and 
they could have no fresh meat or vegetables. 
There was no room for the children to run 
about and the sailors liked to play jokes on 
them. The vovaee usuallv lasted two 



24 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

months, and sometimes it was much longer. 
So everybody was glad enough when land 
was reached and they could get out and 
stretch their legs and have something fresh 
to eat and drink. 

Mr. Davenport and Mr. Eaton with their 
company of Puritan colonists reached Bos- 
ton in June, 1637. The first thing they did 
was to thank God for bringing them safely 
to the end of their voyage. Then they had 
to unload their goods and find a place to 
stay. They received a warm welcome from 
the Boston people for many of them were 
old friends. They probably brought letters 
and messages from relatives and certainly 
they told them the latest news from England. 
They, in turn, heard what was going on in 
New England ; how Thomas Hooker and his 
friends were building a new colony over on 
the Connecticut river, and how many of their 
soldiers had gone off to the war against the 
Pequot Indians. 

When they left England Mr. Davenport 
and Mr. Eaton did not know in what part of 



SETTLEMENT AT QUINNIPIAC. 



-^D 



New England they would settle. They de- 
cided to go to Boston and stay there until 
they could find just the place they wanted. 
Their Boston friends urged them to stay 
there, for such rich men as Mr. Eaton and his 
companions would make a fine addition to 
the Massachusetts Bay colony. They were 
even offered a place for a new town wherever 
they might choose. But they did not care to 
stay in Massachusetts for several reasons. 
In the first place there was a quarrel in the 
church at Boston over a woman named Ann 
Hvitchinson, who was preaching some new 
and strange doctrines. Everybody was ex- 
cited over her. Mr, Davenport did a great 
deal to quiet this excitement and put an end 
to the quarrel. But he and Mr. Eaton both 
feared their people would become mixed up 
in similar religious disputes if they remained 
in Massachusetts. Then in the second place 
they wanted to found a colony of their own 
where they could govern themselves in their 
own chosen way. They had heard, too, that 
the King was about to send a Governor to 



26 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Massachusetts and they did not wish to be 
ruled in that way. Finally they were very 
desirous of founding a commercial city, 
where there was a good harbor. In Massa- 
chusetts they would be too near Boston. 

While the ship Hector was sailing across 
the Atlantic in that spring of 1637, the Eng- 
lish settlers of New England were having a 
fierce war with the Pequot Indians. In the 
month of Alay the Puritan soldiers burned 
the Indian fort near New London and killed 
many hundreds of the redskins. Those who 
escaped fled westward along the shore of 
Long Island Sound. The soldiers from 
Massachusetts and the other colonies pur- 
sued them and killed nearly all of them in a 
swamp near Fairfield. 

As the soldiers followed the Indians along 
the shore they stopped several days at a 
place called Ouinnipiac. (or Long-water-land) 
for they thought some of the Pequots were 
hidden there. The English liked the place 
very much and Captain Stoughton wrote to 
Boston that it was the best place for a set- 



SETTLEMENT AT QUINXIPIAC. 2/ 

tlement that he had seen anywhere. When 
he went home from the war in August he 
told Mr. Eaton all about it, describing the 
fine harbor with the rivers emptying into it 
and the broad rich meadows on all sides. 
Air. Eaton was so much interested in this ac- 
count that he thought he would go and see 
for himself. So he took a number of men 
from his company and sailed around to the 
harbor at Quinnipiac. 

Just what Mr. Eaton did while he was there 
isn't known. But he probably tramped 
through the woods to see if the trees were 
good for timber and masts; he looked over 
the meadows and examined the harbor to see 
how deep the water was; he found the best 
landing places and perhaps caught some fish 
and clams. He probably looked for springs 
of good water and hunted up the Indians to 
learn how many there were and if they were 
friendly to white men. Perhaps he climbed 
to the top of East Rock to look over the 
surrounding country, who knows? What- 
ever he did it is certain that he was so well 



28 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

pleased with Ouinnipiac that he decided to 
leave some of his men there to spend the 
winter and make a l:)eginning of a new set- 
tlement. It was too late in the year to go 
back to Massachusetts and get the rest of the 
company. It would be better for them to 
spend the winter in Boston and not move 
until spring. 

Mr. Eaton himself went back to Boston and 
reported what he had done. It was quickly 
decided that Ouinnipiac should be the place 
for their settlement. Then all looked eager- 
ly forward to the early spring-time when they 
could go there and begin the building of 
their new homes. How slowly the time 
seemed to go ! Many a long winter evening 
was spent in planning their houses or get- 
ting their tools in readiness for the work. 
It is not hard to imagine that Mr. Eaton 
' made a rough map of Quinnipiac and discuss- 
ed with the rest how they should lay out 
their town, and where each should iiave his 
house and lot. Then they could go right to 
work when they reached there. 



SETTLEMENT AT QUINNIPIAC, 2g 

If it seemed a long- winter at Boston it 
must have seemed a much longer one to the 
men left at Ouinnipiac. There were seven 
of them mider the leadership of Joshua At- 
water. They lived in a small hut which they 
built near what is now the corner of Con- 
gress avenue and Meadow street. No doubt 
they found enough to do to keep them busy. 
They cleared away the underbrush; they cut 
down trees and sawed them into boards ; they 
built a few huts for those who were coming 
in the spring; they set traps to catch beaver 
and rabbits; they traded with the Indians 
and bought their furs. At times they suf- 
fered great hardship. It was a very cold 
winter and the snow lay deep. One of their 
number became sick and died. His com- 
panions buried him near the hut. So they 
were glad enough when spring came and the 
snow began to melt and the ice went out of 
the rivers, for soon they would see their 
friends sail into the harbor to join them. 



CHAPTER II. 

How the Founders of New Haven Built 
a City Four-Square. 

About two hundred and fifty persons came 
to New England with Mr. Davenport and 
Mr. Eaton ; of these about fifty were men, 
the rest women, children and servants. By 
the time they were ready to leave Boston 
and g'o to Quinnipiac, quite a number of 
Massachusetts people had joined them. So, 
the small schooner which carried them from 
Boston to their new home was pretty heavil}'- 
loaded. Perhaps that was one reason they 
were so long on the voyage for it took them 
two weeks to reach the end of their journey. 
The water was probably rough and the wind 
cold and raw, for they sailed during the 
early April of a very backward spring. 

As the founders of the future citv of New 



A FOUR-SQUARE CITY. 3I 

Haven sailed into the harbor of Quinnipiac 
that April day in 1638, how strange every- 
thing looked to them and how different from 
that of to-day ! 

No lighthouses guided the sailors. 
No breakwater sheltered the bay; 
No bridges of steel spanned the rivers — 
Just wilderness bordered the way. 

Coming slowly up the harbor they looked 
eagerly and curiously about them. Toward 
the East they saw low-lying hills covered with 
small oak trees, and toward the West great 
forests of savins or pines, which, in later 
years, were to give a name to one of New 
Haven's popular shore resorts. Tall rushes 
lined the shore on both sides of them. In 
the distance loomed up the Red Hills, as the 
Dutch called them, now known as East Rock 
and West Rock. 

After they passed the mouth of the West 
River and neared the head of the harbor, 
they saw two deep creeks extending some 
distance into the country and at almost right- 
angles to each other. They called one of 



32 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

these East Creek and the other West Creek. 
Both have entirely disappeared. The tracks 
of a great railroad lie on the bed of one and 
the other has become a busy street. Small 
vessels could enter the East Creek as far as 
the corner of the present State and Chapel 
streets. But the Puritan settlers sailed up 
the West Creek where their friends, who had 
spent the long winter there, were awaiting 
them. They made a landing near what is 
now the corner of George and College streets. 
Perhaps a rude Avharf had been built for their 
use.^ 

Tradition says that the schooner came to 
anchor in the creek on Friday but that a 
landing was not made until the next day. 
What a busy Saturday that must have been! 
Everybody was up bright and early getting 
ready to land. Their friends ashore were 
eagerly waiting to welcome them and no 
doubt some of the neighboring Indians were 
looking curiously on and wondering at the 
strange dress of the women, for most of them 
had never seen white men's wives before. 



r\;,„)?^ 




1 



x-S« 



v\\,v^>B»f 






.^'B^ 



C-J 





^T^^. 



THP: I.ANDIM. A 1 iiriNNll'IAC IN T63S. 



A FOUR-SQUARE CITY. 33 

Soon they had landed and were hard at 
work. The first thing they had to do was 
to make some kind of shelter for themselves. 
The weather was still quite cold and snow 
often covered the ground. A few huts had 
been built for them beforehand, but these 
were not enough. Some tents which they 
had brought with them in the vessel were 
taken ashore and set up. Then more rude 
huts were built and even wigwams such as 
the Indians used. But strangest of all were 
the cellars which some dug in the side of the 
bank along the creek. These, when covered 
over, were very comfortable in dry weather,- 
but damp and unhealthy when it rained. 

While the men were putting up the tents 
and building huts, the women were busy get- 
ting out the beds and clothing and pans and 
kettles, for they must have a place to sleep 
and something to eat. The boys and girls 
helped to carry things from the landing 
place to the huts but the smaller children 
clung tightly to their mothers' skirts frighten- 
ed at the Indians and the strangeness of the 



34 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

place. What a tired lot of people that night ! 
And how glad they were that the next day 
was Sunday ! 

We may be very sure that one of the first 
things taken ashore at Quinnipiac that Sat- 
urday was Mr. Davenport's Bible and the 
sermon he was to preach the next day. Sun- 
day was a day of rest and worship with those 
Puritan founders of New Haven and they 
hoped it would be with those who should 
come after them for all time. Although they 
were very busy getting settled no work could 
be done on the Sabbath Day. If anyone for- 
got to take some needed thing ashore the 
day before he had to get along without it 
until Monday. They had no church but that 
did not matter ; a large oak tree with spread- 
ing branches which stood near their landing 
place, was good enough for them until they 
could build a church. 

With his people gathered about him seated 
on logs and stumps and the Indians standing 
around in awe, Mr. Davenport preached that 
first Sunday morning at Quinnipiac on the 



A FOUR-SQUARE CITY. 35 

" temptations of the wilderness." This stern 
Puritan minister was wise enough to foresee 
unusual temptations. In a new and strange 
country the people would be tempted to do 
things which they would not think of doing 
at home. The desire to build their new 
homes as soon as possible would tempt them 
to neglect their religious duties. They would 
be tempted to cheat the Indians because they 
were ignorant and weak. So there was need 
for such a sermon. Just what Mr. Daven- 
port said that April Sunday, 1638, we do not 
know, but we may be very sure the people 
believed his words and tried to do as he said. 
In the afternoon, another minister, Mr. Prud- 
den, preached, so the whole day was spent 
in worship and the people had no time for 
labor had they wanted it. 

Monday morning found them again hard at 
work. It probably took them several days 
to unload everything from the vessel and 
get it under cover. Meanwhile leading men 
like Mr. Eaton and Mr. Goodyear were look- 
ing around to see just where to lay out the. 



36 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

town. As most of them expected to engage 
in trade they wanted to hve near together 
and within a short distance of the harbor. 
So they did not plan large farms for each 
family but small lots each just big enough 
for a house and garden. Now among these 
settlers was a young man named John Brock- 
ett who was a surveyor. It is said that he 
left his home in England because he wanted 
to marry a Puritan maiden who was in the 
company. With his help a half-mile square 
was marked out and divided into nine equal 
parts. One side of this square lay along the 
West Creek and is now George street. At 
right-angles to this was another side which 
bordered the East Creek and forms the pres- 
ent State street. Grove and York streets 
were the other two sides of the square. Wliat 
are now Church, College, Chapel, and Elm 
streets divided it into nine equal parts which 
they called " quarters." The central quarter 
was set apart for a market-place, and has 
now become the beautiful Green. The other 
quarters were fenced in as soon as possible 



A FOUR-SQUARE CITY. 37 

and divided among the " free planters." The 
free planters were those who had united 
to form the company and had given money 
to pay the cost of moving to New England 
and building a new colony. So each free- 
planter was given a lot. The size of the lot 
depended partly on the amount of money 
he had given, and partly on the number of 
persons in his family. Mr. Eaton, who gave 
the most money and had the largest family, 
of course, had the largest lot. Those who 
were old friends and those who had come 
from the same part of England were given 
lots in the same quarter where they could be 
near neighbors. As there was not land 
enough for all in the half-mile square, some 
were given lots outside. Some of these lots 
lay between what are now Meadow and lower 
State streets; others were on the other side 
of the West Creek. 

The woods were not very thick where the 
town was laid out. In some places, where 
the Indians had planted corn, there were no 
trees, but only tangled bushes and briers. 



38 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

As soon as possible the trees were cut down 
and fences l)uilt. Some of the latter were 
made of pickets and others of rough logs. 
Then they made ready the ground for their 
gardens. While many were busy in this wa}^ 
others were getting lumber ready for use in 
building houses. As they had no saw-mill, 
they had to saw the logs by hand. This 
was slow and hard work. We may be very 
sure there was many a backache when night 
came during all that first summer at Ouinni- 
piac. Then, too, there were wells to be dug 
and boats to be built. 

So the summer of 1638 w^as a very busy 
one for the new colony, and a hard one as 
well. The spring w^s late, the cold lasting 
until May. In some places corn had to l)e 
planted two or three times over_, for it rotted 
in the ground. But the harvest was a good 
one and there was plenty to eat. In June, 
a terrible earthquake frightened the people 
and shook the little colony to its foundation. 
But they kept right on building, and by late 
fall most of those who came in April had 



A FOUR-SQUARE CITY. 39 

their houses ready to live in. Some were 
probably log-cabins not much better than the 
huts they had made at first except that the 
cracks were stopped up with clay. Others 
were rude frame buildings made from 
squared timbers and covered with rough 
boards or shingles. But a number were quite 
large and stately houses, and, it is said, were 
better than any other houses in New Eng- 
land. It took much longer to build these, 
of course, and probably they were not fin- 
ished during the first year. But before the 
first snow fell in the next winter the new 
town was well started on its career. 

Now let us see who some of the leading 
men were, and where they had lots in the 
half-mile square. Theophilus Eaton should 
be mentioned first. He was the wealthiest 
of all the founders and Governor of the col- 
ony as long as he lived. His house was 
probably the largest in the town and stood 
on the north side of Elm street about half- 
way between Church and State streets. He 
needed a large house, for there was a large 



40 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

number of persons in his family. Besides his 
mother, wife and children there were several 
young persons who had been placed under 
his care and protection. These, with the 
servants, sometimes numbered as many as 
thirty. It is said that nineteen fireplaces kept 
this great house warm in winter. The large 
central room was furnished with fine carved 
tables, chairs, and " Turkey " carpets ; and 
immense brass andirons stood in its great 
fireplace. In this room the whole family 
gathered for their meals and for prayers. 
Then, Mr. Eaton had a library and office 
where he loved to spend much time in reading 
and study. His brother, Samuel, lived next 
door near the corner of State street ; but he 
did not remain in New Haven long. He 
returned to England where he died. 

The lot of Mr. Davenport, the minister, 
was across the street from Mr. Eaton. His 
house was also large and stately, and con- 
tained thirteen fireplaces. One of the most 
interesting rooms in this house was the 
" study," for Mr. Davenport had a great 



A FOUR-SQUARE CITY. 4I 

many books for those clays. He spent so 
much of his time with them, that the In- 
dians called him " so big study man," Noth- 
ing was done in the new colony without ask- 
ing his advice, and all the people loved him 
and paid him great reverence. 

Thomas Gregson was another leading man 
in the colony. His lot was on the corner of 
Church and Chapel streets. The narrow 
street under the Insurance Building called 
Gregson Alley, owes its name to him. His 
house was also one of the largest in the town. 
He was a merchant and engaged in com- 
merce. In 1644 h^ "^^'^s chosen to go to 
England and get a charter for the colony 
from Parliament, but the ship in which he 
sailed was lost at sea. 

Among the rest of these " first settlers " 
were George Lamberton, a famous sea cap- 
tain; Nathanael Turner, the commander of 
the military company; Robert Newman, in 
whose great barn the free-planters met to 
form a government for the colony; William 
Andrews, who kept the first " ordinary," or 



42 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEX. 

hotel; John Cooper, who looked after the 
fences every week; and Francis Newman, 
who was lieutenant of the artillery company 
and Governor after Mr. Eaton died.^ 

For two years after the settlement of the 
town, Oninnipiac was the only name it had. 
In 1640 the General Court decided to give 
it a new name, and the old record of that 
year says, ""This town now called New Ha- 
ven." By that time it had grown to a popu- 
lation of nearly five hundred and had become 
the mother of other settlements. The peo- 
ple who came from Herefordshire, England, 
and were given the southwest quarter, all 
moved to Wepowaug in 1639; there they 
built a town of their own and named it Mil- 
ford. A year later a number of families from 
Kent, England, moved to Menunkatuck and 
founded Guilford. About the same time 
some people from Norfolkshire, England, 
went across to T^ong Island and built the 
town of Southhold. In 1640 New Haven 
bought the territory at Rippowams from the 
Indians and the same vear sold it to a com- 



SKTTLEMENT AT Q U I N N I P I A C.. 43 

pany that came from Wethersficld, Connecti- 
cut. This new settlement was named Stam- 
ford. In 1644 Totoket was settled by an- 
other company from Wethersfield and given 
the name Branford. All these new towns 
united with the town of New Haven under 
the same government and thus formed the 
" New Haven Colony." 



CHAPTER TIL 

Izz'^' Mctnaugin Sold Quiimipiac 

V.lien tbe iozmd^rs of New Haven 
their >erL!e:i:er;t at QtdnnipiEC in 1638, the 
Ehuca ar Mar' Xew York) did not 

Hke it at a!L T.... _. glared tr" ~ '-lipiac 
l>e'on.g:ec to them, and the E- . id no 

right to settle there. But the English claim- 
ed it. too. and paid no attention to the Dutch. 
Mr. E^: ----- - ■ ,-.^^ ^ 

therwe.'. .: _,..: _^..:th2.t, 

after aH. Q. . belonged to the Indians 

■Hrho Ered there. At any rate they did not 
th:r:k it ^ ^ght to stay there ■without 

" ' ' • — ' '": '"'' ~"--' they 

_ e soil, 

btrt the good-iri!! and friendship of their dusky 
'5 as welL 
-»-v/ there were o-nly a :': ' ins living^ 



MOXAtTGIS SOLD fJt'IJfJf IPIAC 45 

in the country arottmd Q ufnni piac in 163.?. 
Great heaps of o^-^ter shells fomwl aHong the 
shore by the English proved that there had 
been a large number of thtem years before. 
But wars ■with other tribes, famiaes and terri- 
ble diseases had killed them. Th^ere were 
hardly enough left to make one st " "'% 
and they were called the Qu-..:-;_-_:5, 
ilomaugin, the Sachem of this tribe, could 
find but forty-seven men and boys for his 
band of warriors : and there were but a few 
women and children besides, Ther lired in 
what is now East Haven. Beyood East 
Rock there were a few more raider the lead 
of Montowese, and there were only ten men 
among them. So, by 1639. there were prol>- 
ably as many, if not more, English people 
at Quinnipiac than Indians. 

These Indians had long lived in great fear 
of their enemies, the Pequots, and especially 
of the Mohawks, who came from the Hudson 
River region, and treated them with great 
cruelty, sometimes forcing them to pay long 
strings of wampum for taxes. So terrible 



46 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN, 

was the war-whoop of a Mohawk to their 
ears, that they had several times tied to the 
settlement at Hartford for protection. And 
so when the English came to live near them, 
and on their own lands, the Quinnipiacs were 
not angry, but welcomed them as friends 
and protectors. 

As soon as Mr. Eaton's company decided 
to go to Ouinnipiac a letter was sent (prob- 
ably by an Indian runner) to the men who 
were staying there, asking them to make ar- 
rangements with the Indians for the pur- 
chase of their land. No written agreement 
could be made then, for the Indians and the 
white men did not understand each other 
very well. But the Indians made it plain 
that the English would be welcomed; and the 
price offered for their land was very satis- 
factory to them. So when Mr. Eaton ar- 
rived they were ready to sign a treaty of sale. 

it was some time 1)cfore the actual pur- 
chase could be made, however. In the first 
place they must find some wdiite man who 
could speak the Indian language and explain 



MOM AUG IN SOLD QU INN I PI AC. 47 

the treaty to the Ouinnipiacs. x\nd then it 
would be better to wait awhile and see how 
the redmen behaved. Then they could juds^e 
better what the terms of the treaty ought 
to be. This was a very wise thing to do, for 
before the first summer was passed the In- 
dians were found to be very troublesome 
neighbors. In fact they were a nuisance. Of 
course, they were not used to the habits 
of the English and they did some things 
which were not very nice, and others which 
Mr. Davenport probably thought were quite 
wrong. They used to walk right into the 
English huts without knocking- or asking 
permission. They often stole fish from the 
English nets and used boats and canoes with- 
out leave. They set traps where the cattle 
would be caught and injured. They some- 
times came into the town on Sunday to trade, 
and hung around the houses while the peo- 
ple were at church. 

Of course the English could not allow such 
things to go on very long, and so, when the 
treaty was drawn up, Mr. Eaton made the 



^8 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Indians agree not to do them any more. 
Now the only white man hving anywhere 
near Quinnipiac, who could speak the In- 
dian language well, was Thomas Stanton of 
Hartford. So they sent for him to come and 
explain the treaty to the Indians. It was the 
last of November, 1638, before Mr. Stanton 
arrived. Word was then sent to Momaugin, 
and he and his Councillors came into the 
town to hear what the strange looking paper 
with the English writing on it meant. The 
signing of this treaty between the English 
and Indians at Quinnipiac probably took 
place somewhere on the " market-place." 
Perhaps Momaugin and his Councillors, 
wrapped in blankets, with the leading men of 
the colony, sat in a circle about a fire, for 
the season was late. About them stood the 
rest of the people curiously watching the 
Indians and listening to the reading of the 
treaty. Mr. Stanton, standing in their midst, 
spoke in a loud, clear voice and explained 
each word and sentence of the writing to the 
Quinnipiacs in their own language. Momau- 



MOMAUGIN SOLD QUINNIPIAC. 49 

gin no doul)t showed his approval by fre- 
quent grunts, and, when the reading was 
finished, signed the document by making his 
" mark " in the form of a bow. Several of 
his Councillors also made their " marks," 
and then, underneath these, was the " mark " 
of the squaw Sachem, Shampishuh, the sis- 
ter of Momaugin. 

Now let us see what the terms of this treaty 
were, and how they were carried out. In 
the first place Momaugin declared that he 
owned all the land in Quinnipiac and alone 
had the right to sell it. Mr. Eaton did not 
wish to give others a chance to claim it later. 
Then the treaty stated that the Indians free- 
ly gave up to Mr. Eaton and the other Eng- 
lishmen, all right to all the land, rivers, ponds 
and trees, with all the liberties belonging to 
them, in Quinnipiac, as far as it extended 
East, West, North and South. In return for 
all this they asked for but three things : first, 
a place in what is now East Haven where 
they could live and plant their corn; second, 
the right to hunt and fish in Quinnipiac; and, 



50 



STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 



third, protection from the Mohawks and their 
Other enemies. 

No doubt the Enghsh were very glad to 
get so much land and timber so cheaply, and 
readily agreed to these conditions. But, re- 
membering how badly these same Indians had 
acted during the few months they had lived 
at Quinnipiac, Mr. Eaton and his friends had 
them agree to the following terms. They 
must not set traps where cattle might be 
caught or hurt ; or frighten away or steal 
fish from the English nets. They were not 
to come into the town on Sunday to trade 
or hang around the houses while the English 
were at church. They were not to open the 
latch of any Englishman's door without per- 
mission, or remain in the house when told to 
leave. They were not to take any boat or 
canoe belonging to the English without the 
consent of the owner. Not more than six 
at a time were to come into the town with 
bows and arrows or other weapons ; nor must 
they in any way harm an English man. wom- 
an or child. They must pay for cattle they 



MOMAUGIN SOLD QUINNIPIAC. 5I 

killed or injured and return those that stray- 
ed away. They must not allow other In- 
dians to come and live with them without the 
consent of the English ; and they promised 
to tell the English of any wicked plots against 
them. Finally, they agreed to have all 
wrong-doers punished by the English. 

On their part the English agreed to pay 
the Indians for any damage done them, and 
to punish all who wronged them in any way. 
Then in return for all they received, they 
gave to Momaugin and his followers these 
things : one dozen coats, one dozen spoons, 
one dozen hoes, one dozen hatchets, one doz- 
en " porengers," ^two dozen knives, and four 
cases of French knives and scissors. 

Two weeks later (in December) the Eng- 
lish bought some more land from Montowese 
and his small band of warriors who lived be- 
yond East Rock. The terms of this treaty 
were nearly the same as those with Momau- 
gin. The Indians were given what is now 
called Montowese for their home, and had 
permission to hunt and fish like the Quinni- 



52 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

piacs. They promised to pay damages when 
their dogs injured the Enghsh cattle, and the 
Enghsh agreed to pay them damages when 
their hogs injured the Indians' corn. ]>>Ionto- 
wese and his followers were given one dozen 
coats, the one for Montowese himself being 
" made up after ye"* English Manner." 

The land which the Indians sold in these 
two treaties is now covered by the towns 
of New Haven, East Haven, Branford, North 
Branford, North Haven, Wallingford, Chesh- 
ire, Hamden, Bethany, Woodbridge and 
Orange. It would seem to us that Mr. Eaton 
and his friends paid a very small sum for 
this great tract of land which is now w^orth 
so many millions of dollars. But we must 
remember that it was unimproved land and 
had to be cleared and made fit for use by the 
English. And then it was really not worth 
much to the Indians. They could not use all 
of it, and a small place grew corn enough to 
support their few numbers. They could still 
hunt and fish in the remainder, and that was 
all they had ever done with it. And then, 



MOMAL'C.IN — 111-- MARK. 



M A N low Ksl-. — 11 1 > M A K K 



MOMAUGIN SOLD QUINNIPIAC. 53 

too, these few knives and liatchets and hoes 
were greatly vahied by the redmen. That 
was not all they received for it, however. 
The best part of the bargain, they thought, 
was the protection the English gave them 
from the Mohawks. 

These agreements with the Indians were 
faithfully observed by the English settlers at 
Quinnipiac. They always treated their sav- 
age neighbors with justice and kindness, not 
only because they wanted to keep them 
friendly, but because it was right. If an In- 
dian was wronged or injured by a white man, 
justice was done. When an Indian guide 
named Wash was attacked and had his arm 
broken by an angry sailor, because he asked 
for his pay, the Court sent the seaman to 
prison and ordered the doctor to care for 
the broken arm. At another time a man 
stole some meat from an Indian named 
Ourance. He had to pay the Indian double 
the price of the meat, and twenty shillings 
fine to the town, and then sit in the stocks 
awhile. 



54 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Once the Indians complained that the hogs 
of the EngHsh ate their corn and made their 
squaws and children cry. They asked the 
English to help them fence in their land to 
keep the hogs out. At the same time the 
Sagamore wanted the town to give him a 
coat because he was old and poor and couldn't 
work. So the town gave the poor old In- 
dian warrior a coat and appointed men " fit 
and able " to help build fences around the 
Indian cornfields. As a result of these kind 
acts no Indian tomahawk was ever raised 
against New Haven nor an Indian war- 
\vhoof) ever heard in its streets.^ 



CHAPTER IV. 

How the Laws of Moses Became the 
Laws of New Haven. 

When the founders of New Haven came 
to Ouinnipiac in 1638, they brought no laws 
with them except the laws of Moses which 
they found in the Bible. For more than a 
year they got along without any settled form 
of government, merely agreeing to do every- 
thing according to these laws. During that 
time, as well as later, Mr. Eaton was looked 
up to by all as a father and judge. If two 
persons got into a quarrel, they asked Mr. 
Eaton to settle it. Then he took down his 
Bible and read the law on the subject and 
decided the dispute accordingly. When any- 
one did something wrong, Mr. Eaton look- 
ed in the Bible again to see what the punish- 
ment should be; if he was not sure about it. 



56 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

he probably talked with Mr. Davenport and 
found out what punishment he thought was 
best. 

A whipping post was set up somewhere on 
the market-place and some *' stocks " built 
with which to punish wrong-doers. Perhaps 
there was little need for them the first few 
months because the people were too busy to 
get into very serious mischief. Still it was 
a wise plan to have them ready, otherwise 
some evil-minded persons would be tempted 
to make trouble. 

The agreement they made to go by these 
old Mosaic laws was written down in their 
records in the following words : 

" In the layinge of the first fownclations of this 
plantation and jurisdiction, vpon [upon] a full debate 
wth [with] due & serious consideration it was 
aggreed, concluded & setled as a fundamental! law, 
not to bee disputed or questioned hereafter, that the 
judiciall lawes of God, as they were deliuered [deliv- 
ered] by Moses, & expownded in other parts of 
scripture, so farr as they are a fence [defence] to the 
morrall law, & neither tipicall, [typical] nor ceremo- 
niall, nor had reffcrence to Canaan shalbe accounted of 
morrall & binding equity and force, and as God shall 
helpe shalbe a constant direction for all proceedings 



THE LAWS OF MOSES. ^'J^ 

here, & a genncrall rule in all courts of Justice hov.' 
to judge betwixt partie and partie. & how to punis'u 
offenders, till the same may be branched out into pcr- 
ticulers [particulars] hereafter." 



Not only did these founders of New Ha- 
ven have no laws but those of the Bible when 
they landed; they had no charter of govern- 
ment even. They knew King- Charles would 
not have given them one if they had asked 
it. So they had no written constitution of 
any kind to tell them how they were to be 
governed. But that did not trouble them 
much, for they knew they could govern 
themselves quite well. They waited more 
than a year before they decided what form 
of government to establish for their new col- 
ony, and there were several good reasons 
for this. 

In the first place it was a very important 
matter and must not be settled in a hurry. 
For awhile they were too busy building their 
new homes to attend to it. Then some of 
their number were planning to build a sep- 
arate town nearby, and did not care to say 



58 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

anything about the kind of government New 
Haven should have. These people did move 
away very soon and founded the town of 
Milford. 

But there was a still more important rea- 
son for this delay. We have already learned 
that the early settlers of New Haven were 
strong Puritans who left England because 
they wished to worship God in a different and 
more simple way than the English Church 
allowed. Now, while they all agreed as to 
the way they ought to worship, they did not 
all agree as to the way they should be gov- 
erned. 

Mr. Davenport came to New England with 
the ambition to found a state " whose design 
is religion." That is, he thought that, as the 
main object of a state should be to train men 
and women to be God-fearing and Christian, 
so the government of the state ought to be 
managed b}^ Christians only, and by Chris- 
tians he meant members of the Church. They 
alone should have the right to vote and hold 
office, for they alone were fitted for such 



THE LAWS OF MOSES. 59 

duties. Mr, Eaton and most of the others in 
the company beheved in the same way. ■ 

There were some among their numljer, 
however, who, hke the Pilgrims, had sep- 
arated from the EngHsh Church. These Sep- 
aratists beheved that in civil government men 
should have the right to vote and hold office 
even if they were not members of the Church. 
So when these founders of New Haven came 
to talk over the question of what form of 
government they should have, they did not 
all quite agree. Mr. Davenport was, of 
course, the leader of those who believed that 
only free planters belonging to the Church 
should rule. He tried to prove this from the 
Bible. Reverend Samuel Eaton, brother of 
Theophilus Eaton, was the leader of the other 
party, and thought that all the free planters 
should have the right to vote. 

After they had discussed the question for 
a long time, finally, in June, 1639, they all 
met to decide it. This meeting was held in 
Mr. Newman's big barn which stood not far 
from the present building of the New Haven 



6o STORIES OF OLD XEW HAVEN. 

Colony Historical Society on Grove street. 
Mr. Davenport did most of the talking- at 
this meeting and told the people what form 
of government he thought they ought to 
have. A number of questions were written 
clown and read aloud by Mr. Newman, and 
then voted upon. Mr. Davenport urged 
them to think very carefully about each one, 
and not vote for it unless they were sure 
they were in favor of it. And to make it 
doubly sure they voted on each question 
twice. 

They first agreed that the Bible contained 
a " perfect rule " for the government of the 
State as well as of the Church. They next 
voted to go by the laws of the Bible in all 
their ])ublic affairs, just as they had done 
during the first year. Then they all declared, 
by holding up their hands, that they wished 
to become members of the Church they were 
about to form. At last they took up the 
important question as to who should have 
the right to vote and hold office. They 
finally decided that only Church members 



THE LAWS OF MOSES. 6l 

sliotlld Have that right, although Mr. Samuel 
Eaton would not agree to it, and said that 
all the free planters ought to vote. 

Before the meeting was ended they ap- 
pointed twelve men, who, in turn, chose sev- 
en of their numl)cr to organize a Church. 
So these seven men became the " pillars " 
of the first church formed at New Haven. 
Their names were Theophilus Eaton, John 
Davenport, Robert Newman, Matthew Gil- 
bert, Thomas Fugill, John Punderson and 
Jeremiah Dixon. The Church was formed 
in August, 1639, '^^'^^» soon after, a meeting- 
house was built in the center of the market- 
place. The next October the voters met and 
held their first election. Mr. Eaton was 
chosen " magistrate for the tearme of one 
whole yeare " and others were appointed to 
assist him. Thus Mr. Eaton became the first 
Governor of the New Haven colony, and was 
re-elected every year until his death. 

On the day after his election the Governor 
had to try an Indian who was charged with 
murder. A few days later this Indian was 



62 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

condemned to death and his head was cut 
off and stuck on the top of a pole in the mar- 
ket-place. From that time on Mr. Eaton 
was kept busy looking after the affairs of the 
colony, and punishing wrong-doers. Ser- 
vants made a great deal of trouble and were 
continually getting drunk or stealing. One 
boy stole a pig and a goat from Governor 
Eaton himself and sold them. Mr. Eaton 
usually scolded these law breakers and told 
them what a terrible " sinn " it was to do 
such things, and then fined them or ordered 
them whipped and set in the stocks. The 
law against burglary provided that the cul- 
prit be branded on the hand with a letter B. 
If a person staid away from church on Sun- 
day he was fined, and he had to give a pretty 
good excuse to escape punishment. i^Icn 
who failed in their duty of keeping watch at 
night were fined. 

And then in those early days, as now, there 
were people who took things that did not 
belong to them. In 1643 ^ woman w^as ar- 
rested for stealing. She confessed that she 



THE LAWS OF MOSES. 63 

stole nearly five thousand pins from Mrs. 
Lamberton together with some " lynning " 
[Hnen] and a " jugge." She also stole 
things from Mrs. Gilbert, taking them out 
of a " tub of water in the colde of winter 
when the famyly was att prayer." She went 
to visit a friend, at Connecticut, and stole a 
napkin from her. She was certainly a bad 
thief and needed severe punishment. The 
old record gives the sentence of the Court 
as follows : 

" Now forasmuch as itt appeares to have beene her 
trade she having beene twice whipped att Connec- 
tecutt, and thatt still she continues a notorious 
theefe and a Iyer, itt was ordered thatt she should be 
seveerly whipped and restore whatt is found wth 
[with] her in specie, and make double restitution for 
the rest." 

On the same day another thief was tried 
by the Court: 

" Andrew Low, Junr [Junior] for breaking into Mr. 
Lings house, where he brake open a cup(board) and 
took from thence some strong water, and 6d in 
mony, and ransackt all the house from roome to 
roome, and left open the dores, for wch [which] fact 
he being comitted to prison brake forth and so es- 



64 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

caped, and still remaines horrible obstinate and re- 
bellious against his parents, and incorrigable vnder 
[under] all the meanes thatt have beene vsed [used] 
to reclaime him, wherevpon itt was ordered thatt he 
should be as seveerly whipped as the rule will beare, 
and to worke with his father as a prisoner wth [with] 
a lock vpon his leg, so as he may nott escape." 



Therefore Andrew was taken to the mar- 
ket-jolace and tied to the whipjDing post. 
Then forty blows of the whip were struck 
on his bare back, for that was as many as 
the Bible rule would allow; and they were 
very careful to do exactly as the Bible said. 
Thus Governor Eaton and his Assistants 
judged criminals and ]:)unished them accord- 
ing to the 'Maws of Moses." 

The General Court or Town-meeting was 
one of the most important branches of the 
government of the New Haven Colony. 
This was a meeting of all the free planters 
to talk over town affairs and pass laws; but 
only those who were church members could 
make the laws. At the October meeting 
they elected the Governor and other offi- 
cers. The meeting was called by the beat- 



THE LAWS OF MOSES. 65 

mg of a drum and any who staid away were 
fined. Sometimes they were excused be- 
cause they didn't hear the drum, or were 
away looking for lost cows, or someone in 
the family was very sick. One of the first 
things this town-meeting had to attend to 
was the question of miltary protection. 
There w^ere two enemies w'hom they always 
feared, the Indians and the Dutch. For- 
tunately they never had any trouble from 
either one, and perhaps the reason was be- 
cause they were always prepared to defend 
themselves. 

New Haven, for the first few years of its 
history, was a sort of armed camp. All men 
between the ages of sixteen and sixty were 
required to have " a good serviceable gunne, 
a good sword, bandeleers,*^ a rest, all to be 
allowed by the military officers, one pownd 
[pound] of good gun powder, fower [four] 
pownd of bullets, either fitted for his gunne 
or pistoll bulletts, wth [with] fower faddome 
[fathom] of match fit for service wth every 
match locke, & 4 or 5 good flints fitted for 



66 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

every firelock peece [piece], all in good or- 
der & ready for any suddayne [sudden] oc- 
casion, service or A'iew." The military com- 
panies drilled every Saturday and the sol- 
diers had target practice. A mark was set 
up to " shout [shoot] att for some priz 
[prize]." An artillery company was also 
formed. 

One of the regular duties of the soldiers 
was to keep the watch. Seven men kept 
watch every night and a watch-house was 
built on the market-place for their use. At 
sundown the drummer beat the drum to call 
the watch-men together. During the night 
these officers walked about the town look- 
ing out for enemies or fire. Strict laws were 
made to compel the watchmen to perform 
their duties faithfully. On Sunday one com- 
pany went to church armed and sat near the 
door while a soldier kept watch in the tower 
on the roof. No one could furnish an In- 
dian with a gun or other weapon without 
an order from the Governor, for they wish- 
ed to keep them unarmed. 



THE LAWS OF MOSES. 6/ 

Laws were also passed to protect the town 
from fire. The roofs of many of the houses 
were of thatch or straw, and would easily 
catch fire. Of course only wood was hurn- 
ed in their fire-places and the chimneys had 
to be cleaned very often or the soot would 
catch fire. It w^as the special duty of Good- 
man Cooper to sweep chimneys. People 
could clean their own, of course, but they 
had to do it well or Goodman Cooper would 
complain of them. Each house was also fur- 
nished with a ladder reaching to the roof; 
and fire-hooks were provided by the town. 
Then, as another measure of safety, people 
were not allowed to make bonfires in the 
town. As a result of all these arrangements 
New Haven never suffered from serious fires. 

The town-meeting passed a good many 
laws about fences, too. The fences which 
were built at first soon rotted and were easily 
broken down by cattle. This made a lot of 
trouble and cows often got into the corn- 
fields ; they found that even pigs would swim 



68 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

small streams and get through weak fences. 
Many people kept goats and let them feed 
on the market-place ; but they found that 
goats could climb fences and get into gar- 
dens and orchards and do much damage. 
To put a stop to all this trouble they passed 
laws compelling house owners to repair their 
fences or build better ones; and no goats 
were allowed to feed on the market-place 
without a keeper. 

Then this old colonial town-meeting look- 
ed after a number of other things. Bridges 
had to be built and kept in repair; and where 
they could not build bridges they had to have 
ferries. Boats and canoes, which were hast- 
ily made when they came to Quinnipiac, be- 
came leaky and unfit for use after awhile. 
After they had had a number of accidents 
from the use of such boats, two men were 
appointed to examine them and mark the 
good ones. Then if a person rented an un- 
marked and leaky boat, he was fined. Some 
people got into the habit of borrowing oars 



THE LAWS OF MOSES. 69 

and paddles and carts and wheelbarrows with- 
out asking the owners' permission; then, 
when they were through using them forgot 
to return them. So a law was passed to 
stop that. 

The town-meeting made laws about mon- 
ey, also. The most common coins were Eng- 
lish shillings and Spanish " peeces of eight." 
But Indian money, or " wampum," was used 
as well. This consisted of strings of polish- 
ed beads made from shells. The wdiite beads 
were worth twice as much as the black ones. 
Sometimes people tried to pay their debts 
with the black wampum because it was not 
as valuable ; and some even put it on the con- 
tribution plate in church. It was hard to 
get rid of this poor wampum, so the town- 
meeting made a law fixing its value, and Mr. 
Goodyear was appointed to judge whether 
wampum w^as good or not. 

Then they had to make law^s about weights 
and measures. Men w^ere appointed to ex- 
amine all the weights and measures used in 



70 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

the colony. Those which they found to be 
correct they marked with a seal NH. Ever 
since then there have been " Sealers of 
weights and measures." 

Thus we see what a great variety of mat- 
ters the old colonial town-meeting had to at- 
tend to, and how much there was to do, to 
get the new government into running order. 



CHAPTER V. 

How a Great Ship Went out through the 
Ice and Came Back in a Summer Cloud. 

In proportion to the number of its inhab- 
itants, New Haven was the richest colony 
in New England. Some of its Puritan set- 
tlers were quite wealthy for those early days. 
Many of them had been merchants and trad- 
ers in England, and wished to engage in the 
same business in America and make their 
new colony a commercial city. One reason 
Quinnipiac was chosen as the place for their 
settlement was because of its deep and shel- 
tered harbor, where ships could safely anchor 
and land their cargoes. And then, in laying 
out the town, the central square, or " quar- 
ter," was reserved for a public " market- 
place " where goods of all kinds could be 
bought and sold. 



^2 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEX. 

The colonial town-meeting made a num- 
ber of laws to encourage commerce and aid 
traders. Ship captains were forbidden to 
throw ballast overboard into the channel of 
the harbor lest it should become filled up. 
Ship carpenters were excused from military 
service that they might spend all their time 
building ships. No one was allowed to cut 
a spruce tree without the consent of the 
governor, for they wanted to preserve them, 
and use them all for masts. As the " flattes " 
prevented large boats from coming up to the 
shore, a wharf was built ; this was near where 
the ruins of the old City Market are, now. 
So, in these different ways they tried to help 
those who went down to the sea in ships. 

It was not long before Captain Lamberton 
was making voyages to Delaware and Vir- 
ginia ; and others to Massachusetts Bay, 
Salem, Connecticut and Manhattan. Then a 
little later New Haven vessels sailed to the 
Barbadoes, the Bermudas and the West In- 
dies. They carried away furs, clapboards 
and shingles, wheat, pork, and other prod- 



THE SHIP IN A SUMMER CLOUD. 73 

nets, and brought back cotton, sugar, and 
molasses. But these voyages were not very 
successful. The expense of building or buy- 
ing new ships was so heavy, and the cost of 
sending out a trading expedition from a new 
colony was so great, that there was little left 
for profit. And then, at first, they were apt 
to make mistakes, and so meet with mis- 
fortunes. If they sold lumber that was not 
well seasoned, people in the West Indies 
would not buy any more of them. A man in 
Milford made flour and biscuit and New Ha- 
ven traders shipped it to Virginia. It was 
such poor stuff that it did not sell well, and 
the traders complained of it. So the Milford 
baker had to go to New Haven and explain 
matters. He confessed the fault and declar- 
ed it was due to bad grinding; but he prom- 
ised to do better in the future. The dam- 
age had been done, however, and it was hard 
for New Haven merchants to sell fiour or 
biscuit in Virginia after that. 

But the worst misfortune that came to the 
New Haven traders during the first few years 



74 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

occurred at Delaware. The Indians at Ouin- 
nipiac were so few in number, that the trade 
in furs, there, did not amount to as much as 
was expected. So Mr. Lamberton and a 
few others decided to build some trading sta- 
tions at Delaware Bay where they could carry 
on the fur trade with the Delaware and Sus- 
quehannah Indians. For a few hundred dol- 
lars they bought all the land in New Jersey, 
from Cape May to the mouth of the Dela- 
ware river. Some twenty men went down 
there to build a few huts and engage in trade. 
On their way they stopped at Manhattan 
where they met the Dutch Governor, who 
promptly ordered them to go home again. 
He said that New Jersey belonged to the 
Dutch and no Englishman could settle there. 
This did not frighten the New Haven men, 
however, and they went on. But they prom- 
ised to acknowledge the Dutch government 
if they found that they were in Dutch terri- 
tory. 

Mr. Lamberton and his companions soon 
learned that not only was the land they had 



THE SHIP IN A SUMMER CLOUD. 



/O 



bought claimed by the Dutch, but the Swedes 
who hved near, said it belonged to them, 
also. Nevertheless they went to work, built 
their huts and began to trade. In 1642 the 
Swedes and Dutch united to drive the Eng- 
lish away. A few Dutch ships sailed around 
to Delaware Bay and landed a small force. 
With the help of the Swedes they attacked 
the New Haven men, made some of them 
prisoners, drove the rest away, seized their 
goods and burned their huts. The Swedes 
captured Mr. Lamberton and put him in 
prison. They charged him with the crime 
of trying to stir up the Indians to war; but 
they could not prove it. They fined him 
heavily because he had traded at Delaware 
and then sent him home. 

This affair was a severe blow to the New 
Haveners and cost them many thousands of 
dollars. They tried to persuade the other 
New England colonies to help punish the 
Dutch and Swedes but without success. Mr. 
Lamberton was sent down to Delaware again 
to demand satisfaction from the Swedes but 



76 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

nothing ever came of his visit, and the New 
Haven men never recovered damages for the 
loss of their goods and huts. The claim to 
the land which had been purchased was not 
given up, however, and several years later 
another unsuccessful attempt was made to 
build a settlement at Delaware Bay. A few 
of the New Haven people were quite discour- 
aged by the failure of this enterprise and 
feared that their ambitions to build up a 
successful commercial city at Quinnipiac 
would never be realized. But the rest, al- 
though discouraged, did not despair and 
bravely went on with their plans. 

New Haven merchants had always been 
very desirous to have ships sail direct to 
England and return, and thus save time and 
trouble ; for so far, they had had to go to 
Massachusetts Bay, first. This was an en- 
terprise which required large ships and no 
one person could afford to build them. In 
1645, to make good the losses they had met 
with at Delaware and other places, the lead- 
ing men of the town formed a company and 



THE SHIP IN A SUMMER CLOUD. 77 

bought a large ship which, it is said, was built 
in Rhode Island, and would carry one hun- 
dred and fifty tons cargo. All who could 
possibly spare any money took stock in this 
company. Then j\Ir. Eaton, Mr. Goodyear, 
Mr. Malbon and ]Mr. Gregson formed a sec- 
ond company, called the " Company of Mer- 
chants of New Haven," and hired this ship 
of the first company to make a trading voy- 
age to England. So, nearly, everyone in the 
town was interested in this enterprise and did 
what was possible to make it a success. 

Just what the name of this vessel was Is 
not known. Some have thought that it was 
called the " Fellowship." In the old records 
it is always mentioned as the " great shippe." 
When it sailed into New Haven harbor, peo- 
ple went down to the wharf to look at it. 
Many rowed out to examine it. Old sailors 
did not like the looks of it. Mr. Lamberton, 
who was made the captain, thought it was 
a " cranky " boat, and would easily capsize 
in the middle of the ocean. But whether they 
thought their new ship was seaworthy or not 



y8 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

they went right to work and made ready for 
the voyage. The captain rigged the masts 
to suit himself and had a fine new set of 
blocks or pulleys made for the tackling. Then 
they filled the hold with everything they 
could find to sell. They put in lumber and 
hides, pease and wheat, and a lot of beaver 
skins. Some put in their silver plates and 
spoons; for they needed other things more, 
and their silverware was all they had left with 
which to buy them. Besides these there were 
some of Mr. Davenport's sermons which were 
to be printed in England. This cargo was 
worth many thousands of dollars, and, if the 
voyage was successful, would bring a hand- 
some profit; but if it was a failure, the loss 
would be ruinous, for it was like putting all 
their eggs in one basket. 

The passengers who sailed in this ship 
formed the most precious part of its burden. 
There was a large number of them, all going 
home to England, and for various reasons. 
Air. Gregson was one. He had charge of 
the cargo and was going to see if he couldn't 



THE SHIP IN A SUMMER CLOUD. 79 

get a charter for New Haven Colony from 
Parliament. Nathanael Turner, who was 
captain of the military company, was another. 
Mrs. Stephen Goodyear was going home to 
see friends and relatives. And Mrs. Wilkes 
was going to see her husband who had gone 
the year before and had sent for her to join 
him. Then there were many others who 
were homesick for old England and anxious 
to see their native land again. 

It was in the month of January, 1646, when 
the " Great Shippe " sailed away. The har- 
bor was frozen over and a passage had to be 
cut for the vessel three miles through the 
ice. A crowd of people followed along the 
side on the frozen surface, bidding farewell 
to friends and loved ones with many a tear 
and many a fear. Mr. Davenport was there 
and prayed for their welfare and safety, but 
with an anxious heart. " Lord, if it be thy 
pleasure," he said in a trembling voice, *' if 
it be thy pleasure to bury these our friends 
in the bottom of the sea, they are thine, save 
them." At last the ship was free from the 



80 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

ice and out of the harbor. Her sails filled 
with the cold wind and she soon disappeared 
in the gray East. The people watched her 
initil she was out of sight and then slowly 
and silently walked back to the town and 
their winter's loneliness ; but not without 
thoughts of the happy home-coming in the 
fall. 

The months passed away very slowly that 
winter. The thoughts of all were on the 
absent ship. But summer came at last and 
with it the arrival of ships from England. 
But they brought no tidings of Captain Lam- 
berton or his ship. This did not cause much 
anxiety, however, for often a vessel was driv- 
en far out of her course and was slow in 
reaching the end of her voyage. So they 
waited wnth patience and hope. But the 
months went by and still no news. Friends 
became anxious. Others tried to cheer them 
l)y suggesting reasons for the delay. " Per- 
haps a storm has driven them to a foreign 
shore," they said, or " it may be they have 
been cast on some distant island and a pass- 



THE SHIP IN A SUMMER CLOUD. «I 

mg ship will pick them up." Fall came and 
the days grew shorter. Still no word from 
the absent ship. Hope gave way to despair. 
Many a home was filled wnth sorrow and 
mourners went about the streets. They re- 
alized at last that Captain Lamberton's worst 
fears were come true, and the " Great 
Shippe " had been lost at sea. 

Another sad and dreary winter passed in 
the stricken colony. And while all had given 
up hope of ever seeing their lost friends 
again, many longed and prayed to know if 
they had really been lost at sea, or had suf- 
fered some harder fate at the hands of sav- 
age enemies. When summer came again it 
brought an answer to their prayers, but in 
a way they had never expected. During the 
afternoon of a w^arm June day, a thunder- 
storm passed over the town of New Haven 
and disappeared across the water to Long 
Island. Soon afterwards, about an hour be- 
fore sunset, the people beheld a wonderful 
sight. The " Great Shippe," whose loss they 
had mourned so long, came sailing in 



82 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

a cloud through the air into the mouth 
of the harbor. There could be no mis- 
take about it. There were the keel, hull, 
masts and rigging of the same ship that had 
sailed away so many months before. And 
there on the deck, standing erect, was Cap- 
tain Lamberton pointing with his sword out 
to sea. On came this wonderful ship, her 
sails bending before the wind, until one 
standing on the shore could almost toss a 
stone on board. Suddenly there came a 
change. Her topmasts seemed to be blown 
off and hung tangled in the rigging; soon 
all her masts fell overboard ; then the hull 
capsized and all disappeared in mist and 
cloud. The people gazed upon this strange 
sight with great awe. But good Mr. Daven- 
port comforted them and said that God had 
sent this ship of air to show them how their 
friends were lost at sea. 

Just as the loss of so many precious lives 
crushed the spirit of the new colony, so the 
loss of so much valuable property destroyed 
all hopes of its commercial success. In fact. 



\ 













^ 



Till-, I'll AN I I'M Mill'. 



THE PHANTOM SHIP. 

In Mather's Mag^nalia Christi, 
Of the old colonial time. 
May be found in prose the lep^end 
That is here set down in rhyme. 

A ship sailed from New Haven, 
And the keen and frosty airs. 
That filled her sails at parting, 
Were heavy with good men's prayers. 

" O Lord ! if it be thy pleasure " — 
Thus prayed the old divine — 
" To bury our friends in the ocean, 
Take them for they are thine ! " 

But Master T.amherton muttered, 
And under his breath said he, 
" This ship is so cranky and walty, 
I fear our grave she will be ! " 



STORIES OF OLD NF.W HAVEN. 

And the ships that came from En.^iaiul, 
When the winter months were gone. 
Brought no ti(hngs of this vessel, 
Nor of Master Lamherton. 

This put the people to praying- 
'j^hat the Lord would let them hear 
What in his greater wisdom 
lie had done with friends so dear. 

And at last their prayers were answered; 
It was in the month of June, 
An hour before the sunset. 
Of a windy afternoon, 

When steadily steering landward, 

A ship was seen below, 

And they knew it was l^amberton, Master, 

Who sailed so long ago. 

On she came with a cloud of cp.nvas, 
Right against the wind that blew, 
lentil the eye could distinguish 
The faces of the crew. 



TIIF. IMl.WTOM SHIP. 

Then fell her strainiiiiq; topmasts, 
Hanqino" tangled in the shrouds. 
And her sails were loosened and lifted. 
And blown away like clouds. 

And the masts, with all their ri«-png, 
Fell slowly, one by one, 
And the hulk dilated and vanished, 
As a sea-mist in the sun ! 

And the people who saw this marvel. 
Each said unto his friend. 
That this was the mould of their vessel, 
And this her tra^c^ic end. 

And the pastor of the villasife. 
Gave thanks to God in prayer. 
That to c|uiet their troubled spirits, 
He had sent this Ship of Air. 

H. W. LONGFELLOW, 1850. 

(With the kind permission of Houghton, Mifflin 
& Company.) 



THE SHIP IN A SUMMER CLOUD, 83 

the disaster nearly put an end to the New 
Haven Colony. There was at one time se- 
rious talk of moving to Ireland. And then 
Oliver Cromwell, who was at the head of the 
English government, offered them a place for 
settlement in the island of Jamaica. But the 
people feared the plague in the West Indies, 
and many of them were now too old to again 
undergo the hard labor of building a colony. 
So they gave up their ambitions of becoming 
wealthy traders and turned their attention to 
farming. They soon found that they could 
make a comfortable living in that way and 
were contented. But they never forgot the 
sad year of 1646, and how their happiness 
and hopes had gone down in the " Great 
Shippe." 



CHAPTER VL 

How New Haven Hid the Judges Who 
Condemned a King to Death. 

There is no story of old New Haven that is 
more interesting or so full of strange and 
exciting adventures as the story of the Regi- 
cides, Edward Whalley, William Goffe. and 
John Dixwell. These men were brave fight- 
ers in Oliver Cromwell's Puritan army; and 
when it was determined to try King Charles 

I, of England, for treason, they were made 
judges of the famous court which condemned 
him to death. That was in 1649. 

Eleven years had gone by since that terri- 
ble event. Cromwell was dead and Charles 

II, king of England. All the enemies of the 
old king had been pardoned except the judges 
who had caused him to be beheaded. The 
new king wanted revenge for the death of 



HIDING THE REGICIDES. 85 

his father, and demanded that these judges 
be punished. Some of them were seized and 
executed, l)ut others ran away and hid. 
Whalley and Gofife knew what was in store 
for them, and sailed away to New England 
before the new king was crowned. They 
landed at Boston in July, 1660. They were 
received with great honor and treated with 
much kindness by Governor Endicott and 
the people of Massachusetts, for they had 
done brave deeds for the Puritan cause in 
England. After a short stay in Boston, they 
went to Cambridge, where they lived very 
quietly, although they did not try to hide. 
It was not then known in Boston that the 
new king wanted to have them arrested and 
punished. 

There is a good story told of these two 
regicides in connection with their stay in 
]\Iassachusetts — a story which shows that 
they were very skillful with their swords, and 
knew how to humble a silly boaster as well. 
A stranger came along one day and set up 
a little platform in the street; mounting it, 



86 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

he flourished a sword and dared anyone to 
fight with him. No one seemed wilHng to 
try it. Finally one of the regicides, dressed 
as a rough farmer, wrapping a cheese in a 
napkin for a shield, and taking a mop which 
he had rubbed in a mudpuddle, mounted the 
stage to meet the boasting swordsman. The 
fellow, of course, felt very much insulted ; 
but the first angry thrust of his sword was 
skillfully caught and held fast in the soft 
cheese, while the dirty mop was wiped across 
his red face. This was repeated several 
times, amidst roars of laughter from the by- 
standers. The man then lost his temper, and 
picking up his heavy broadsword, threatened 
to kill the judge. But he was warned off 
with such a stern voice that he was frighten- 
ed, and declared that this farmer fighter must 
be either Whalley, Goffe or the Devil. 

It was not long before news was brought 
to Boston that the regicides were wanted in 
England. Governor Endicott and the other 
magistrates debated what they ought to do. 
Some of them were afraid if they did not ar- 



HIDING THE REGICIDES. 87 

rest the judges and send them back to Eng- 
land that the new king would be angry and 
perhaps take away their charter. But while 
they were talking about it Whalley and Goffe 
settled the question for them by running 
away. 

Leaving Massachusetts, the two fugitive 
judges went to Hartford. Although they 
were well treated there, they decided to go 
on to New Haven, where they had friends. 
Besides, they would 1)e nearer Manhattan 
should they find it necessary to leave the 
English colonies' altogether. They arrived 
at New Haven in March, 1661. Mr. Daven- 
port and their other friends at Quinnipiac 
gave them a hearty welcome and generously 
cared for them. They did not try to hide 
for the first few weeks, but mingled with the 
people and went to church. Saturdays they 
watched the " train-band " practice and prob- 
ably took part in the drill, showing the sol- 
diers how to handle their guns and swords, 
for they were old fighters themselves. 

Unfortunately for the two hunted judges, 



88 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

their feeling of security did not last very long. 
They could not get out of reach of the long 
arm of the revengeful king even in the wil- 
derness of New England. One day in the 
latter part of March a royal proclamation was 
brought to New Haven. This proclamation 
ordered a search to be made for the regi- 
cides in all the New England colonies; if 
found they must be arrested and sent to Eng- 
land. 

The people of New Haven had been ex- 
pecting this royal command for some time 
and had been wondering what they should 
do when it came. They wanted to obey the 
king, but they also wanted to save the good 
and brave judges from a cruel death. Their 
good minister, Mr. Davenport, settled the 
question for them. He preached a sermon 
from a verse in the Bible which says, " Hide 
' the outcasts, bewray not him that wander- 
cth." That was God's command and they 
decided to obey God rather than their king. 
So when the proclamation came they hid 



HIDING THE REGICIDES, 89 

the outcasts, and did not betray the wander- 
ing- judges. 

Dressed as though for a long; journey, 
Whalley and Goffe appeared on the streets 
of New Haven one morning and then went off 
in the direction of Milford. People who did 
not know their plans, supposed, of course, 
that they were going to Manhattan. But 
during the night they came back very quietly 
and hid in Mr. Davenport's house. A month 
later they went across the street and staid 
with JNIr. Jones, whose father was also a regi- 
cide. There they remained until the king's 
officers came in May, when they escaped to 
the woods north of the town. 

To understand how these royal officers 
happened to come to New Haven we must 
go back to Massachusetts for a moment. Af- 
ter it became known that the regicides had 
left Cambridge and gone to Connecticut, the 
authorities in Massachusetts ordered a 
search made for them in their colony. There 
was no reason, of course, why they should 
not make it a thorough one. Then, to show 



90 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

the king how eager his colony was to obey 
his commands and thus gain his favor, Gov- 
ernor Endicott appointed two yomig men as 
officers to visit the other New England col- 
onies and see if they couldn't discover and 
capture the " colonels " as the runaway 
judges were called. These two young offi- 
cers were named Thomas Kellond and Thom- 
as Kirk. They had just arrived from Eng- 
land and were friends of the king. Of 
course, Governor Endicott could not give 
them power to search houses in the other 
colonies; he could merely ask the other gov- 
ernors to grant the officers that right and 
urge them to help in the search. 

Kellond and Kirk started right oft* to Hart- 
ford to look for Whalley and Goffe. They 
found Governor Winthrop very polite and 
quite willing to give them assistance. But 
they soon found out that the men they want- 
ed had gone to New Haven. So, without 
further delay, the eager young officers hur- 
ried on southward. They reached Guilford, 
fifteen miles from New Haven, Saturday. 



HIDING THE REGICIDES. QI 

There they stopped to see Mr. Leete who, at 
that time, was governor of the New Haven 
Colony. 

Now if Governor Leete had been as eager 
to give them aid as they were anxious to re- 
ceive it, the two royal officers might have 
reached New Haven that night and spoilt all 
the rest of this story. But the Governor was 
rather slow in his way of doing things and 
on this particular Saturday he was very slow ; 
at least Mr. Kellond and Mr, Kirk thought 
so. He began to read their letters out loud, 
so that everybody in the room where they 
were could hear him and learn who the stran- 
gers were, and know their errand. They in- 
terrupted his reading, warned him not to tell 
such important news to others, and asked to 
go into another room by themselves. They 
said afterwards that an Indian runner was 
immediately sent to New Haven by those 
who had listened, to warn Whalley and Goffe. 
Perhaps Mr. Leete didn't have his spectacles 
on that day; at any rate it took him a very 
long time to read those letters from the gov- 



Q2 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

ernor of INIassachusetts. And when he had 
finished them, he told the officers that he 
hadn't seen the " colonels " in nine weeks 
and he thought they must have left New Ha- 
ven. But they replied that the regicides had 
been seen there since that time, and asked for 
horses to carry them farther on their er- 
rand. Their request was finally granted, but 
it was a very long time before the horses 
were ready. To the impatient young offi- 
cers, it seemed as though no one in Guilford 
was in a hurry that afternoon ! 

While they were waiting for their horses, 
someone outside told them that Whalley and 
Gofl^e were hiding at Mr. Davenport's house 
and that Mr. Leete knew it. So they went 
ri!.^,ht back to the Governor and demanded 
military aid. This Mr. Leete refused to 
grant them without the consent of the other 
magistrates ; but he offered to give them a 
letter to Mr. Gilbert, who could help them. 
Of course they were very glad to have such 
a letter and waited for the Governor to write 
it. It took Mr. Leete a long time to find 



HIDING THE REGICIDES. 93 

just the rig-ht kind of paper for such an im- 
portant matter, and then he had to stop to 
sharpen his old quill pen. By the time the 
letter was written, it was too late in the day 
for the officers to go on. And as it was Sat- 
urday night, they had to remain in Guilford 
over Sunday. 

Although Kellond and Kirk left Guilford 
bright and early Monday morning, a man 
named John Meigs started earlier and reach- 
ed New Haven in time to warn the people of 
their coming. After the officers arrived, they 
had to wait several hours for Mr. Leete to 
come before a meeting of the magistrates 
could be held. They then demanded permis- 
sion to search the town, but the Governor 
told them that he would not make them mag- 
istrates. They warned him not to disobey 
the king and get the New Haven colony into 
trouble ; but Mr. Leete still refused their re- 
quest and went to talk it over with the mag- 
istrates again. The whole day was spent in 
this way and the king's officers could get no 
aid or satisfaction. 



04 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

The magistrates finally decided to call a 
meeting of the General Court for the next 
Friday to see what could be done. Kellond 
and Kirk were not willing to wait, however, 
and remained in the town only long enough 
to offer great rewards to any Indian or white 
man who would capture the regicides, and 
then went on to Manhattan to continue their 
search in that Dutch colony. They could 
find no trace of either Whalley or Goffe, 
however, and returned to Boston by boat, 
disgusted with their poor luck, and greatly 
vexed at the people of New Haven. 

Now let us see what had become of the 
two regicides whom we left at Mr. Jones' 
house. As soon as they learned from the 
Indian runner who arrived from Guilford that 
Saturday night, that royal officers were on 
their way to arrest them, Whalley and Goffe 
fled from their hiding place and took refuge 
in an old mill north of the town. They re- 
mained there over Sunday; on Monday while 
the magistrates were debating what to do, 
and the officers were impatiently waiting their 



HIDING THE REGICIDES. 95 

decision, Mr. Jones and two other friends 
guided the fugitives to another hiding place 
beyond West Rock, near Woodbridge. This 
spot they called Hatchet Harbor, because 
there they found a hatchet with which they 
built a hut of green boughs. They staid 
there two nights and a Mr. Sperr}-, who lived 
not far away, gave them food. Then they 
went to the top of Providence Hill, or what 
is now West Rock, and hid in that strange 
pile of huge rocks, which has long borne the 
name of " Judges' Cave."" They remained 
at this cave for a month spending rainy nights 
at Mr. Sperry's house. This friend kept them 
supplied with food, sometimes carrying it to 
them himself, sometimes sending his little 
boy to leave it on a stump where they could 
find it. This boy used to wonder what be- 
came of the food but his father told him there 
was somebody at w^ork in the woods who 
wanted it. 

While the regicides were hiding in this 
cave the General Court of the New Haven 
Colony met and voted to have a thorough 



g6 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

search made in every town in the colony. 
Men were appointed to look through all 
houses, barns, and sheds ; even ships in the 
harbor were searched. But no trace of the 
judges could be found. 

In those early days there were many wild 
beasts in the forests about New Haven that 
are rarely seen in the New England woods 
now-a-days. One night as the regicides lay 
in their bed of leaves a panther stuck his head 
into the mouth of the cave and gave a terri- 
ble roar. This so frightened them that soon 
after they left the cave and went to some un- 
known hiding place. 

One Saturday, about a week after their 
adventure with the panther, hearing that their 
friends might sufifer for their kindness in hid- 
ing them, Whalley and GofTe went back to 
New Haven and told Mr, Gilbert that they 
would surrender rather than cause harm to 
their friends. Mr. Gilbert wanted to talk 
with the other magistrates about it first, and 
as the next day was Sunday, he waited until 
Monday before deciding what to do. Mean- 




jri>C.KS ( AVK 



HIDING THE REGICIDES. 97 

time the judges were urged by their friends 
to flee, so on Monday they again disappeared. 
Several stories are told of narrow escapes 
they had at that time. They were staying at 
the house of a Mrs. Eyers when some men 
started out to search for them. Mrs. Eyers 
saw these men coming and told Whalley and 
Goffe to run out the back door and then come 
right in again. They did so and when the 
officers came the woman told them that the 
judges had been there, but had just gone out 
of the back door. So the men hurried off 
to the woods back of her house to find 
them. 

Then it is said that the two fugitives start- 
ed in the direction of Mill River, or out what 
is now called State street. Before they had 
gone very far the Town Marshall caught up 
with, and tried to arrest, them. They fought 
so fiercely with their walking sticks, how- 
ever, that the officer had to leave them and 
go back for aid. While he was gone they 
hid under what was called Neck Bridge near 
Cedar Hill ; and when the Marshall came 



^8 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

back with his aids they hurried right across 
this bridge, not thinking that the men they 
were after lay under their feet. Wlien the 
ofiacers had got out of sight Whalley and 
GofTe shpped into the woods again and went 
back to their old hiding place in the cave at 
West Rock. 

It is also related that about this same time 
they went over to Guilford and offered to 
surrender to Governor Leete, but they were 
hidden in his cellar and fed from his table. 

The New Haven of^cers soon gave up the 
search for the brave " colonels " and made no 
further effort to arrest them. In August the 
judges again left their cave and went to Mil- 
ford, where they lived hidden with a Mr. 
Tompkins for several years. For two years 
they did not even go out of the house and 
their presence was known to only two or 
three persons in the town. 

In 1664 a new danger arose. Four royal 
Commissioners arrived at Boston to seek the 
regicides and arrest them. So Whalley and 
Goffe left Milford and returned to their old 



HIDING THE REGICIDES. 99 

home in the cave at West Rock. But an 
Indian discovered the hiding place one day 
and reported it in New Haven. Then it was 
decided that they must find some new shelter 
farther away from the colonies, and after a 
long journey through the forests they found 
a home with Reverend Mr. Russell at Had- 
ley in the western part of Massachusetts. 
They remained in safety there until they died, 
some years later. 

Some time after Whalley and Goffe had 
gone to Hadley, a stranger giving the name 
of James Davids, came to New Haven to 
live. He was a very quiet but wise looking 
man. Very few knew anything of his history 
or that his real name was John Dixwell, one 
of the Regicides. Where he had hidden dur- 
ing the years since Charles H became king, 
no one knows. He went to live in the house 
of Mr. Ling on the corner of College and 
Grove streets. Reverend Mr. Pierpont, who 
was minister in New Haven at that time, 
knew him better than anyone else, and. as 
they were near neighbors, they often met at 



lOO STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

the fence which divided their yards and had 
long talks together. We can gness that Mr. 
Dixwell told the good minister many stories 
of the old days in England when a king lost 
his head. Mr. Pierpont's wife used to won- 
der why her husband talked so much wnth 
that strange old man ; but he merely replied 
to her questioning, " He is a very knowing 
and learned man." 

In 1686 that tyrannical old Governor of 
New England, Sir Edmund Andros, spent 
a Sunday in New Haven and saw Mr. Dix- 
well at church. He asked someone who that 
noble looking man was and was told that he 
was a merchant. " I know that he is not a 
merchant," said the Governor. Someone 
must have told Mr. Dixwell of it, for he was 
not at church in the afternoon. 

James Davids later married the widow of 
Mr. Ling and remained in New Haven until 
his death. He lies buried in the rear of the 
old Center Church on the Green, l)ut the 
monument over his grave bead's the name of 
"John Dixwell." 



CHAPTER VII. 

How New Haven Came to Be in the 
State of Connecticut. 

After the English colonies in America had 
won their independence from Great Britain, 
they estabHshed the Federal Union and be- 
came the thirteen original States. The col- 
ony of Virginia became the State of Vir- 
ginia; the colony of Connecticut became the 
State of Connecticut. Why didn't the col- 
ony of New Haven become the State of New 
Haven? That is certainly an interesting 
question and the answer to it is to be found 
in the fact that more than a hundred years 
before the Declaration of Independence was 
made, New Haven ceased to be a separate 
colony and became a part of the colony of 
Connecticut. How did the old colony of 
Davenport and Eaton come to lose its in- 



I02 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

dependence and be joined to the colony of 
Winthrop and Hooker? The answer to this 
question forms an interesting story. 

Whenever companies of Enghsh people 
were formed to move to America and found 
new colonies, it was customary for them to 
ask the King for a charter to take with them. 
Now a charter was a written document which 
granted the new colony certain rights and 
privileges. Some charters granted more than 
others, but usually they gave the colonists 
the right to govern themselves and make 
their own laws ; only, the magistrates and 
laws of the new colony must be acceptable 
to the King and approved by him. Then the 
King was always bound to protect such a col- 
ony, and so a charter was considered a very 
valuable thing to have and always carefully 
guarded. 

When Mr. Eaton and Mr. Davenport came 
to New England with their company to found 
a new colony, they brought no charter with 
them. It is quite certain that they could 
not have obtained one if they had asked it, 








y.,V.^-5',*6«./»- '^'^-^ ^My'-!*! i^^/V-'i 



^'!ir7^^^'*^'-" ^/fc^ t*-^" 



AN OLD CIIAKIKK. 



UNION WITH CONNECTICUT. I03 

for at that time, instead of giving them a 
charter, the King more Hkely would have put 
Mr. Eaton and Mr. Davenport in prison. 
So the New Haven Colony was founded with- 
out a charter stating what kind of govern- 
ment it should have ; and its founders had to 
make a government of their own. For more 
than twenty years the colony at Ouinnipiac 
was practically an independent state and did 
not even acknowledge the King. 

But there soon came a time when the peo- 
ple of New Haven thought that, after all, 
it would be much better for them if they had 
a charter. The reason was that some of the 
New Haven people had attempted to estab- 
lish a trading station on the Delaware River 
and had got into a quite serious quarrel 
with the Dutch, and the need of protection 
by mother England was keenly felt. Now it 
so happened that just at that time the gov- 
ernment of England was in the hands of the 
Puritans and there was a possibility of their 
obtaining a charter from Parliament. So in 
November, 1644, the General Court asked 



I04 



STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 



Mr. Gregson to go home to England and try 
to get a charter for the New Haven Colony. 
At the same time, to meet the necessary ex- 
pense (it cost a good deal of money to pro- 
cure a charter), they voted to raise the sum 
of £200 of which New Haven was to pay 
£110 in good salable beaver skins, and the 
other towns of the colony the remaining 
£90. More than a year passed before this 
sum could be raised and the other necessary 
preparations made. Then Mr. Gregson sail- 
ed for England in that ill-fated ship which, 
laden with so many precious lives and such a 
valuable cargo, left New Haven in 1646 and 
was lost at sea. This loss was such a serious 
blow to the struggling little colony that, 
for the time being, at least, any thought of 
procuring a charter was out of the question ; 
and really the people were so discouraged 
that, for some time, few of them cared 
whether they ever had a charter or not. Any 
further attempt to secure one then, would 
have been in vain anyway, for England was in 
the midst of a civil war and Parhament was 



UNION WITH CONNECTICUT. I05 

too busy fighting the King to think of grant- 
ing New Haven a charter. 

Now it happened that the people who set- 
tled the colony of Connecticut in the region 
about Hartford had no charter either. They 
did not come direct from England, but moved 
away from Boston in 1636 because they did 
not quite like the government of the Massa- 
chusetts Bay Colony. And, as it did not 
seem to be a favorable time to procure a 
charter, they established a government of 
their own, as the New Haven people did a 
little later. 

Some y^ars before the settlement of Hart- 
ford, all the land along the Connecticut River 
had been granted to a number of English 
Lords, who, at one time, intended to move 
to New England and settle, and even went 
so far as to have a fort built at Saybrook. 
Later, these Puritan Lords gave up their 
plan of moving to America, and their right 
to the land passed into the hands of a Mr. 
Fenwick, who, in 1644, sold it to the colony 
of Connecticut. It was not known, then, 



I06 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

whether this purchase inchided the territory 
of Ouinnipiac or not, for the patent, or deed, 
of the property was in Eng-land. And wlien 
Connecticut found out that she had really 
bought the colony of New Haven from Mr. 
Fenwick, she said nothing about it and made 
no claim to it until fifteen years later. When, 
in the year 1660, New Haven appointed a 
committee to mark out the boundary line 
between her colony and Connecticut, the 
people of the latter colony heard of it and 
sent a remonstrance to New Haven and de- 
clared that all the territory of the New Ha- 
ven Colony belonged to them. This was a 
great surprise to Mr. Davenport and his 
friends and, of course, they would not allow 
any such claim to go unchallenged. So a 
committee was appointed to consult with 
Connecticut about her " pretended " right to 
New Haven. 

Meantime the people of Connecticut had 
decided to send their Governor, Mr. Win- 
throp, to England to procure a charter for 
their colony. The new King, Charles H, was 



UNION WITH CONNECTICUT. IO7 

in power, and some of their old friends were 
high in authority in the government. So it 
seemed to l)e a favoraljle time to obtain one. 
When Mr. Davenport heard of this he wrote 
a letter to Governor Winthrop warning him 
not to include New Haven in the new char- 
ter. Mr. Winthrop replied that if the new 
charter should include New Haven, that col- 
ony could join Connecticut or not, as it pleas- 
ed. He knew, however, that there were 
some people in the New Haven Colony who 
would be glad to join Connecticut, for they 
were dissatisfied with their own government. 
Even their governor, Mr. Leete, wrote Mr. 
Winthrop saying that he hoped the charter 
would include his colony, for he feared that 
the King would punish them in some way be- 
cause they had hidden the regicides. If they 
were joined to Connecticut they would prob- 
ably escape such punishment. 

With the help of some of the English Lords 
who had formerly owned the land, and by 
presenting to the King a valuable ring which 
had once belonged to his father, Charles I, 



I08 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Governor Winthrop succeeded in obtaining 
a charter for the colony of Connecticut. It 
was one of the best, if not the best, of the 
charters granted to the New England col- 
onies. It gave to the people of Connecticut 
the right to govern themselves. They could 
elect their own officers and make all their 
own laws without regard to the King. That 
explains why, in 1688, when the tyrannical 
governor of New England, Sir Edmund An- 
dros, tried to take it away, the men of Hart- 
ford hid it in the oak tree^ which thus gained 
the name Charter Oak. Indeed, so excel- 
lent was this colonial charter that it was used 
by Connecticut as a state constitution for 
nearly thirty years after the formation of the 
Union. 

At a meeting of the General Court of 
Connecticut held in October, 1662, the new 
charter was read. It was then found that it 
really did include the territory occupied by 
the New Haven Colony, A number of per- 
sons from Guilford, Stamford and Southhold. 
towns in the New Haven Colon}-, had heard 



UNION WITH CONNECTICUT. IO9 

of this and were present at this meeting. By 
their own request they were at once made 
citizens of Connecticut, although they still 
owed allegiance to the New Haven Colony. 
And this was done before Connecticut even 
informed New Haven that the new charter 
had arrived and included its territory. But 
a committee was at once appointed to take a 
copy of the charter to New Haven, inform 
the people there of its contents, and invite 
them to join with Connecticut. 

When the people of New Haven learned 
that Connecticut claimed their territory un- 
der this new charter and had actually taken 
some of their towns away from them without 
permission, they were very indignant. A 
meeting of the New Haven Court was held 
to decide what should be done about it. All 
looked to Mr. Davenport for advice. He did 
not hesitate to give it, for he bitterly opposed 
the union with Connecticut, and with good 
reason. He had labored long and suffered 
much to establish in the New World a state 
whose government should be in the hands of 



no STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

church members only. If they should unite 
with Connecticut all his work would be in 
A^ain, and his dearest hopes disappointed, for 
in the Connecticut colony all free-holders 
could vote whether church members or not. 
At this meeting of the New Haven Court 
Mr. Davenport told the people the reasons 
Avhy he thought their colony was not includ- 
ed under the Connecticut charter. In the 
first place the new charter did not contain 
the nam.e of New Haven, and that colon}' 
had always been treated as a separate col- 
ony by not onh' the other New England col- 
onies, including Connecticut, but by the King 
himself. If the King had intended to in- 
clude New Haven he would have said so. 
If Connecticut had intended to include New 
Haven, they would have been consulted be- 
fore Mr. Winthrop was sent to England. 
The reply which was sent to Connecticut 
contained some of these reasons and declared 
that an appeal would be made to the King to 
learn the truth of the matter. It alsq de- 
manded that Connecticut restore the towns 



UNION WITH CONNECTICUT. Ill 

that she had so wrong-fully taken away from 
New Haven and wait until an answer could 
be had from the King. Connecticut made 
no reply to this letter, nor did she restore to 
New Haven Colony the towns that had been 
received under the new charter. 

When Mr. Winthrop, who was in England 
still, heard that New Haven had sent word 
to friends there asking them to learn from 
the King if he had really intended to include 
their colony under the Connecticut charter, 
he persuaded them to wait until he could re- 
turn to New England and promised to set- 
tle the dispute satisfactorily. At the same 
time he wrote a letter to Connecticut urging 
that no injury be done New Haven, and, if 
any had been done, to repair it. This letter 
was addressed to the officers of the Connec- 
ticut colony but was first sent to Governor 
Leete, of the New Haven Colony, that he 
might read it. Governor Leete thought this 
letter was a copy of one sent to Connecticut 
and kept it. So Connecticut never received 
it, and not only continued to hold the towns 



112 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

belonging to the New Haven Colony but ap- 
pointed officers for them as well. 

By the time Mr. Winthrop returned to 
Connecticut the quarrel between the two col- 
onies was very bitter. Connecticut in- 
sisted that New Haven belonged to her and 
tried to persuade Mr. Davenport and his 
friends to unite peaceably. New Haven 
bluntly refused to discuss the subject until 
her towns were restored to her, and issued a 
proclamation calling upon all persons who 
had joined Connecticut to pay their taxes to 
the New Haven Colony. When this procla- 
mation was set up at Stamford, the Connec- 
ticut constable there tore it down. And 
when it was published in Guilford two men 
went to Hartford and asked to be protected 
from New Haven. Several Connecticut offi- 
cers returned to Guilford with them, and, ar- 
riving late at night, made so much noise fir- 
ing off their guns, that Governor Leete was 
frightened and sent to Branford and New 
Haven for help. A number of soldiers hur- 
ried to Guilford to see what the matter was. 



UNION WITH CONNECTICUT. 



113 



But with all the noise and excitement no one 
was hurt. The Connecticut officers merely 
asked the Governor not to collect taxes from 
Connecticut citizens until* they could come 
to some agreement about the charter. 

Another meeting of the New Haven Gen- 
eral Court was then called. It was again 
decided not to treat with Connecticut until 
the towns were restored. But a committee 
was appointed to write out and send to Con- 
necticut a statement of their grievances. 
This was called " New Haven's Case Stated." 
In the meantime Connecticut chose another 
committee to visit New Haven and try to 
come to some agreement. They offered to 
restore to New Haven the towns they had 
taken away if New Haven would agree to 
join Connecticut. To this New Haven 
would not agree. Governor Winthrop was 
unable to settle the dispute for on his re- 
turn from England he gave up the idea of 
allowing New Haven to join Connecticut or 
not, as she chose, and decided that New Ha- 
ven must come under the new charter, any- 



114 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

way. Although more persons in the New 
Haven towns were coming to favor union 
with Connecticut, Mr. Davenport and his 
party still controlled the colony and there 
seemed no prospect of an agreement. ^lore 
than two years had passed since the charter 
came and Connecticut was ahout to take 
some definite action to compel New Haven 
to submit when something very unexpected 
happened and put a sudden end to the dis- 
agreeable quarrel. 

In March, 1664, King Charles H made his 
brother, the Duke of York, a present of 
some territory in America. This gift in- 
cluded northern New England, Long Island, 
and all the land from the Connecticut River 
to Delaware Bay. Thus not only was the 
New Haven Colony given to the Duke but 
a part of Connecticut as well. The territory 
of the Dutch was also included and a fleet 
sent to conquer it for the English. With this 
fleet came four Commissioners with power 
to settle disputes and fix boundaries between 
the colonies. 



UNION WITH COXNliCTICUT. I15 

Here was a new and alarming danger for 
both New Haven and Connecticut. The peo- 
ple in both colonies feared for their liberties, 
for the Duke of York was a Royalist and no 
friend to the Puritans. Many of the New 
Haven people who had thus far opposed the 
union with Connecticut, now favored it, for 
they believed that if the two colonies were 
united there would be more chance of their 
maintaining the new charter and their rights. 
Tlie town of Milford soon voted to join Con- 
necticut and this still more weakened New 
Haven. Guilford and Branford were the 
only towns left to her ; and many of the peo- 
ple in those towns were beginning to favor 
union. IMeantime the colony of Manhattan 
had been conquered from the Dutch, and its 
name changed to New York. Then the Roy- 
al Commissioners decided to give Long Is- 
land to New York, and fixed the boundary be- 
tween New York and Connecticut where it 
is to-day. This act placed New Haven in 
the Connecticut colony and made it neces- 
sary for her to submit. A meeting of the 



Il6 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

General Court was therefore held and the 
New Haven Colony voted to submit to 
Connecticut as soon as the decision of the 
Commissioners was officially made known. 
At the same time the people of New Haven 
declared that their action must not be taken 
as justifying the wrong which Connecticut 
had done them, nor as a surrender of their 
former right and claim. Thus New Haven 
lost her independence and became a part of 
Connecticut. 

Most of the people soon forgot the bitter 
quarrel and were contented with their new 
government. But some were never recon- 
ciled. The people of Branford were so dis- 
satisfied that they soon left their town, and, 
under the leadership of Mr. Pierson, their 
minister, moved to New Jersey and founded 
the city of Newark. But there was no one 
in old New Haven who felt so keen a disap- 
pointment over the union with Connecticut 
as Mr. Davenport. His great ambition and 
cherished hopes were destroyed forever. He 
was broken-hearted and would not be com- 



UNION WITH CONNECTICUT. 11/ 

forted. In the year 1668 he moved to Bos- 
ton where he became the minister of the old 
First Church. Two years later his disap- 
pointed life was ended. But the city he left 
in sorrow, and which owes so much to him, 
has never forgotten, nor ceased to revere, his 
name. And the blessings which resulted 
from the union he tried so hard to prevent, 
have long since buried in oblivion the wrong 
which helped to bring it about. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

How New Haven Came to Be the Home 
of Yale College* 

When the Puritan founders of New Haven 
landed at Ouinnipiac in 1638 they intended 
to make their settlement not only a busy 
trading center, but a leading college town as 
well. ]\lr. Davenport, who was a graduate 
of Oxford College, England, especially de- 
sired this and looked forward with eagerness 
to the time when a college could be set up 
at New Haven. He believed that schools 
and colleges were necessary in a state 
*' whose design is religion," for intelligent 
and educated men alone could make such a 
state strong and safe. Mr. Eaton and the 
other leaders in the new settlement agreed 
with him : and, that they might set up a 



SELKCTlUiX OK VALES HOME. IIQ 

school as soon as possible, they took a school 
teacher with them to Ouiiinipiac. 

The name of this school teacher was Eze- 
kiel Cheever, He came from London and 
was only twenty-three years old. As soon 
as his house was built and he had a place to 
keep a school he began to teach. The old 
town record states what agreement was made 
with him and what the purpose of the school 
was to be : 

" For the better training up of youth in 
this town, that through God's blessing they 
may be fitted for public service hereafter, 
either in church or connnonwcal, it is order- 
ed that a free school be' set up, and the 
magistrates with the teaching elders are en- 
treated to consider what rules and orders are 
meet to be observed, and what allowance 
may be convenient for the schoolmaster's 
care and pains, which shall be paid out of the 
town's stock. According to which order 20 
pounds a year was paid to Mr. Ezekiel Cheev- 
er, the present schoolmaster, for two or three 
years at first; but that not proving a com- 



I20 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

petent maintenance, in August, 1644, it was 
enlarged to 30 pounds a year and so con- 
tinueth." By a free school they meant a 
school to which all were free to send their 
children, but they were to pay something for 
it. 

Only boys were sent to school in those 
days for they alone were to become citizens 
and officers in church or state. They were 
taught Latin and English, principally, for 
children learned to read and write at home 
or from private teachers. Little arithmetic 
and no geography or history were taught. 
It was expected that children would learn 
such things from experience and by listen- 
ing to the stories of strangers, travellers or 
sailors. The old record of 1644 says that 
" Mr. Pearc desired the plantation to take 
notice thatt if any will send their children 
to him, he will instruckt them in writing or 
arethmatick." 

Mr. Cheever was an excellent teacher for 
those days. When his scholars did not study 
as hard as he wished, he was very apt to use 



SELECTION OF YALE S HOME. 121 

a rod on their backs. It is said that he 
wore a long white beard and when he stroked 
it clear to the end, it was a sign for naughty 
boys to look out. Although they some- 
times forgot the Latin they always remem- 
bered the rod. Mr. Cheever wrote a book 
for the study of Latin which was used as 
a school book in New England for a great 
many years. He taught in New Haven for 
more than ten years and then moved to Bos- 
ton. He lived to be ninety-four years old 
and was a schoolmaster for seventy years. 

After Mr. Cheever's departure it became 
necessary to find another teacher. John 
Hanford was at length secured. The town 
voted " that his work should be to perfect 
male children in the English after they can 
read in their Testament or Bible, and to 
learn them to write, and to bring them on 
to Latin as they are capable, and desire to 
proceed therein." The town agreed to pay 
for his room and board, and give him 20 
pounds besides. Once a year, in harvest 
time, he could visit his friends. Mr. Han- 



122 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

ford did not stay very long, however. His 
health was poor and he complained because 
he had to teach spelling. The school at 
New Haven went on in this unsatisfactory 
way for several years. Teachers did not re- 
main very long and few scholars cared to 
study Latin. 

Air. Davenport did not give up hope that 
" a small college should be settled in New 
Haven." Some land was set apart for a col- 
lege but the years went by and no college 
was started. The little town was too poor 
to support one. Although they could not 
have one of their own, the people of New 
Haven were willing to give something to the 
college in the Masssachusetts Bay Colony. 
Every person " whose hart was willing " gave 
a peck of corn which was sent to Boston for 
the support of poor scholars at Harvard 
(College. This yearly gift was known as the 
" college corn." 

In 1657 there seemed a possibility that 
Mr. Davenport's hopes would be fulfilled. 
Mr. Edward Hopkins, who once belonged to 



SELECTION OF YALE S HOME. I23 

the New Haven company, out settled in 
Hartford and became Governor of the Con- 
necticut colony, died in England. In his will 
he left fourteen hundred pounds and a 
" negar " [nigger] for the " breading up of 
hopeful youths in New England both at 
Grammar school and college for the public 
service of the country." Mr. Davenport 
was named as one of the trustees who were 
to have charge of this money. Part of the 
gift was to go to Hadley, Massachusetts, 
part to Harvard College, and part to New 
Haven. Before the money could be obtain- 
ed, however, Hartford secured a share of it. 
What became of the " negar " isn't known. 

In 1660 the Hopkins Grammar School 
was started in New Haven. Mr. Jeremiah 
Peck became the first teacher. He taught 
Latin, Greek, Hebrew and Oratory. His 
salary consisted of " 30 bushels of wheat, i 
barrel of pork, and 2 barrels of beef, 40 bush- 
els of Indian corn, 30 bushels of pease, i 
firkin of butter, 100 lbs. of flax, 30 bushels of 
oats." School began at six or seven o'clock in 



124 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

the morning and there were only twelve days 
of vacation during the year. The school was 
kept in the old school-house on the mar- 
ket-place and continued to be held there un- 
til 1815. Seats were provided in the church 
for the " schollers " and a man was appointed 
to keep order. This new grammar school 
which Mr. Davenport hoped to see a col- 
lege some day, was not very successful at 
first. There were so few scholars that it 
hardly paid to keep it open. In 1668 Mr. 
Davenport told the town that unless they 
sent more scholars to the school he would 
have the money given by Mr. Hopkins sent 
where it would do more good, for the condi- 
tion of the school was such that the will of 
Mr. Hopkins was not being carried out. 
Several then promised to send their sons to 
study Latin and that satisfied Mr. Daven- 
port. When he left New Haven, later, he 
gave the money to the care of others for the 
benefit of the school. From that day to this 
the Hopkins Grammar School has been one 



SELECTION OF YALE S HOME. 125 

of the most famous college preparatory 
schools in the country.** 

Mr, Davenport did not live to " see a col- 
lege set up at New Haven." But the good 
men who followed him did not forget his 
ambition nor let his efforts toward that cher- 
ished object be in vain. Not many years 
after his death the ministers in and about 
New Haven began to think seriously of the 
plan to start a college. The Grammar school 
students were compelled to go to Harvard 
if they wished a college education. Many 
of them did go; but it was thought to be a 
hardship, because it was so far away from 
home. Mr. Pierpont, the minister at New 
Haven, was interested in a college, and had 
energy enough to take the lead in the mat- 
ter. In the year 1700 ten ministers were 
selected to act as trustees of the proposed 
college. They held a meeting at the home 
of Reverend Mr. Russell in Branford and 
there founded what later came to be called 
Yale College. Each minister gave some 
books saying, " I give these books for found- 



126 STORIES OF OLD NEW MAVEN, 

ing a college in Connecticut." About forty 
books were collected in this way. 

The colonial Assembly which met at New 
Haven in 1701 gave these trustees a charter 
for the new college. This charter did not 
call it a college, however. It gave it the 
name " collegiate school." It was said that 
it was given " so low a name " that it " might 
the better stand in wind and weather." That 
meant that the King might interfere with the 
enterprise if he learned that a colonial assem- 
bly had given a charter to a college. That 
was a right which belonged to him. 

In November, 1 701, the trustees met at 
Saybrook and decided to locate the college 
there. It was much easier to travel by wa- 
ter than by land in New England in those 
early days, and Saybrook could be reached 
from both Hartford and New Haven in that 
way. Then the first president (or Rector, 
as he was called in those days) was Rev- 
erend Andrew Pierson, the minister at Kil- 
lingworth, (now Clinton) Connecticut, and 
that was near Saybrook. Jacob Hemingway 



SELECTION OF YALE S HOME. \2.J 

of New Haven was the first student and he 
was taught by Mr. Pierson at Killingworth. 
Soon other students attended the college and 
tutors were appointed to assist in teaching. 
The commencements were held at Saybrook 
each year. 

In 1707 Mr. Pierson died and Reverend 
Samuel Andrew of ]\Iilford became Rector. 
The senior class went to Milford to study 
under his direction while the rest of the stu- 
dents remained at Saybrook in charge of the 
tutors. The little college struggled along in 
that way for several years. Not many stu- 
dents entered and few were graduated, for 
England and France were at war and the 
New England colonies were sending men 
and spending money to defend themselves 
from the Canadians. Besides, the students 
did not like to stay in Saybrook very well, 
as there were few people in the town and 
their life was very dull. Then, too, they 
complained of the tutors because they were 
poor teachers. These complaints became so 
numerous that the trustees finally voted to 



128 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

allow the students to study in other places. 
So in 17 16 some went to Guilford and others 
to Wethersfield, 

Of course the colleg^e could not go on very 
long, split up in that way, and its friends 
saw that it must have a suitable home some- 
where if it was to succeed. Several towns 
wanted it, but New Haven and Hartford 
were especially anxious to secure it. Just 
as soon as some of the students went to 
Wethersfield, the people of Hartford asked 
the Colonial Assembly to move the college 
to their town. They declared Hartford was 
the best place for it, because it was nearer 
the center of the colony and most of the 
students were already near there. Unfor- 
tunately for Hartford most of the trustees of 
the college lived near New Haven and were 
determined to locate the school there. In 
1716 they voted to do this, and ordered the 
students to meet at New Haven the next 
year. The Wethersfield students refused to 
go and much excitement and bad feeling re- 
sulted. Meantime the trustees began the 



SELECTION OF YALE S HOME. 129 

erection of a college building at New Haven 
and held the first commencement there in 
1717. 

Hartford would not accept the decision of 
the trustees and again appealed to the As- 
sembly. The lower house of the Assembly 
then voted to remove the college to Middle- 
town, but the Senate, under the lead of Gov- 
ernor Saltonstall, would not agree to it. 
After a long debate the Assembly decided 
that the trustees had the right to locate the 
college where they pleased and that settled 
the question. To comfort Hartford the As- 
sembly voted to build a State House there. 

The reasons which the trustees gave for 
choosing New Haven as the home of the col- 
lege were these : The air and soil were 
agreeable ; it would be cheaper for the stu- 
dents to live there ; and more money was 
given to the college by the people of New 
Haven. The town gave eight acres of land 
and various persons gave forty acres more. 
These reasons did not satisfy either the stu- 
dents at Wethersfield or the people of Say- 



130 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

brook. Y/hen an attempt was made to re- 
move the library from the latter town there 
was trouble. The Sheriff was finally sent 
with some officers and the books removed to 
New Haven by force. The wheels of the 
carts on which they were loaded were taken 
off, bridges were broken down on the road, 
and many of the books were torn or lost. 

The students at Wethersfield who refused 
to go to New Haven, set up a rival college 
and held a commencement of their own. 
Reverend Elisha Williams, who sought to 
have the college located at Hartford, gave 
the degrees. When the Assembly ordered 
these students to go to New Haven, how- 
ever, they unwillingly obeyed. They made 
a great deal of trouble for the college and 
were called a " very vicious and turbulent 
set of fellows." In 1726 the bad feeling was 
put at an end by the election of Mr. Wil- 
liams as Rector. He was a very popular 
man and the college prospered under his 
direction. 

For more than fifteen vears this collesre 



SELECTION OF YALE S HOME. I3I 

which had wandered about from pillar to 
post and at times had seemed more dead 
than alive, had no other name than that of 
" collegiate school " given by the charter. 
It was now old enough to have a better name 
and obtained one. This is how it happened : 
Mr. Jeremiah Dummer, who was the agent 
of the Connecticut colony in England, was 
much interested in the college and told his 
friends about it, asking them to give books 
for the library. Ivlore than eight hundred 
volumes were collected in this way. Among 
those who became interested through Mr. 
Dummer's efforts, was Elihu Yale, the son 
of David Yale who had landed at Quinnipiac 
with Theophilus Eaton in 1638, Soon after 
the settlement of the town Mr. Yale moved 
to Boston where probably Elihu was born. 
Later the family went back to England. 
.When he became a young man Elihu was 
sent to the East Indies where in time he 
became the Governor of Madras. When he 
returned to England he was a very rich man. 
In his boyhood he had often heard his fatlier 
tell the storv of the vovage to New Enofland 



132 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

and the landing at Quinnipiac and now he 
thought it would be a very nice thing for him 
to make the college there a present. So in 
1 71 7 he sent some books, a fine picture of the 
King of England and a quantity of East In- 
dia goods which were to be sold in Boston 
and the money given to the college. The 
sum received for these goods amounted to 
more than five hundred and sixty pounds and 
was a very welcome gift, for it enabled the 
trustees to finish the college building. This 
building was three stories high and painted 
blue. At the Commencement of 1718 it was 
dedicated. There was great rejoicing, and, 
in honor of Mr. Yale, it was named Yale Col- 
lege. Far greater sums have often been giv- 
en to the college since then but none has 
been more timely or welcome than the gift 
of Elihu Yale. It gave new life and hope to 
all who had labored so patiently for its suc- 
cess, and started it on that career which has 
made the name of Yale honored around the 
world. Thus was fulfilled the earnest wish 
of John Davenport that a college might be 
set up at New Haven.^ 



CHAPTER IX. 

How the Markct-PIace Became the Green 
and the Many Changes It Has Seen. 

No spot in old New Haven has been so 
closely connected with its life and history as 
the beautiful and widely famed Green. For 
more than two hundred and fifty years it has 
been the silent witness of events both great 
and small and scenes both joyous and sad. 
Ever since the founders of the town set it 
apart for the common use of all the people, 
it has been the heart of New Haven, contin- 
ually throbbing with the life-blood of religion 
and patriotism. From the wildness of a 
swampy forest, with its tangled underbrush 
occasionally trodden by a wandering Indian, 
it has become the smooth and shaded park, 
daily crossed by busy thousands whose pious 
ancestors long ago displaced the stealthy 



134 STORIES OF OLD NEW HA VEX. 

redmen. Hiding in its grassy bosom the 
bones of many hundreds whose Hving feet 
trod its surface in the days gone by. it holds 
in its shaded lap the three old churches whose 
sentinel towers have long watched over the 
good of the people and which still remain the 
faith and hope of the future. 

The story of how the founders of Xew Ha- 
ven laid out their town four-square, divided 
it into quarters, and then reserved the central 
quarter for a market-place, has already been 
told. Mr. Eaton and his associates were very 
ambitious to build up a successful trading 
town. It was expected that whenever a 
ship anchored in the harbor its cargo would 
be taken to the market-place and offered for 
sale : or. if any one in the town had anything 
to sell, he would take it there. Auctions, 
sheriff's sales and fairs were to be held there. 
It was to be the business center of the town. 
Strangely enough it was never much used for 
such purposes. The longed-for trading ves- 
sels with rich cargoes failed to enter the har- 
bor. The fairs which were held twice a vear 



THE GREEN A X D ITS CHANGES. I35 

for a few years did not prove successful. The 
people themselves had little to sell and that 
little was lost at Delaware and in the " Great 
Shippe " of 1646. Most of the settlers had 
their own gardens and raised their own vege- 
tables, so there was little need of a market- 
place on that account. 

The other uses for which this plot of 
ground was set apart have been more valuable 
and popular. The founders built their first 
church there, and as a religious center it has 
ever since been prominent. For more than 
one hundred and fifty years it contained the 
only burial place in the town. For many years 
criminals were punished in the market-place. 
Puritan children went to school there in the 
early days. For nearly two hundred years 
it served as a pasture for cattle. Its use for 
such purposes has long been given up. To- 
day it is a public park and a place for public 
gatherings, religious, political and military. 

This historic open space in the center of 
New Haven long known as the Green, con- 
tains a little over sixteen acres of ground. 



136 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

It is one-sixth of a mile long but not quite 
square, for the young Puritan surveyor, John 
Brockett, found it a difficult task to mark 
out the nine quarters in the woods and un- 
derbrush. It is remarkaljle that he succeed- 
ed as well as he did. Of course it was a 
very different looking place in 1638 from 
what it is now. It was an uneven wooded 
slope full of tangled bushes and briers. On 
its lower side, near the corner of Church and 
Chapel streets, it contained a swamp. From 
this swamp a small brook ran south and emp- 
tied into the East Creek near Wooster street. 
Bordering it, and overhanging its shallow 
pools, were alder bushes and willows from 
which the Indians made their arrows. There 
the noise of lazy turtles and the croaking of 
big mouthed frogs could be heard on early 
spring evenings. Now, stranger noises fill 
the place. Swift moving trolleys sound their 
clanging gongs and deep toned bells ring out 
the passing hours. 

As soon as possible the settlers began the 
work of clearing up the market-place. The 


















?5:?.>?^ 






THE GREEN AND ITS CHANGES. IT^y 

trees were cut clown and the timber used for 
building and fire-wood. One of the first 
things set up in the clearing was a whipping- 
post. Then some stocks were built and 
placed there. So, one of the earliest uses of 
the market-place was for punishment. In 
1639, the year after their landing, the foun- 
ders built their first church. This was a rude 
box-like building fifty feet square. It stood 
in the center of the market-place, thus signi- 
fying that religion was to be the central pur- 
pose in all their undertakings. On the roof 
of this building was a small tower where the 
town drummer " drummed " the people to 
meeting. As the wood of which this church 
was built was unseasoned, the roof soon be- 
gan to leak and the sides bulged out. The 
carpenters had to repair it and brace up the 
walls. But in this rickety old barn-like 
church the Puritan founders of New Haven 
worshipped God for more than thirty years, 
summer and winter. 

For the use of the soldiers who kept watch 
at night, a small watch-house was built on 



138 STOKIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

the upper side of the market-place. This 
served as a prison, also, until a separate build- 
ing was erected for that purpose near by. 
Soon after that a school-house was built. 
This stood where the United Church is now. 
Twenty-five years after the settlement of the 
town the surface of this plot was still very 
rough and covered with stumps and stones. 
Grass had commenced to grow in some 
places, but people were in the habit of dig- 
ging it up and planting it in their own yards. 
Leading up to the church w^ere the narrow 
paths which had been worn by the Puritan 
church-goers and back of it were the graves 
of those who hatl died since the founding of 
the town. 

In 1670 the old leaky-roofed meeting- 
house was sold and a new one containing a 
belfry, was built. A few years later a vessel 
came into the harbor having a bell on l)oard. 
This bell was taken ashore and. after a :.hort 
trial, was purchased by the town. It was 
hung in the new church belfry and was rung 
for mcetinfrs and at nine o'clock evcrv niHit. 



THE GREEN AND ITS CHANGES. I39 

It took the place of the drum which had been 
used for such purposes since 1638. In 1699 
this second meeting-house was found to be 
too small and an addition was made on one 
side of it and the windows enlarged. At the 
same time an effort was made to improve the 
looks of the market-place. They tried to 
uproot the barberry bushes, " sorrill," and 
" poysonous stinking weeds that infest our 
Market-place." 

In 1 7 19 a county house and a State House 
were erected on the market-place, for New 
Haven had become one of the capitals of the 
colony of Connecticut. Four years later a 
new school-house was built. At that time 
children going to school could see pigs and 
cows and horses roaming over the rough 
ground and cattle continued to be pastured 
there until 1827. Geese could frequently be 
seen wandering about the marshy places and 
were continually a cause of complaint. Deep 
ruts made by heavy carts ran in various di- 
rections, for people drove across the square 
at will. 



140 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

As time went on the appearance of the 
market-place improved. About 1750 people 
began to call it the Green. Better building-s 
took the place of the old and dilapidated 
structures. In 1756 a brick meeting house 
was erected. This stood just in front of the 
present Center Church. At the same time 
a board fence was built around the graveyard 
and painted red. In 1760 some elm and but- 
tonwood trees were set out. One of the lat- 
ter is still standing near the corner of Elm 
and College streets. In 1759 a new court 
house was built. It stood near the present 
Trinity Church. Ten years later another 
meeting house was built where the United 
Church is now. This made the second 
church building on the Green. It was built 
of wood and painted white. 

In 1774 a liberty pole was set up. Thus 
the Green became the center of patriotic in- 
terest during the long and trying years of the 
Revolution. There Benedict Arnold drew 
up his little company and demanded the keys 
of the powder house, when the news of the 



THE GREEN AND ITS CHANGES. I4T 

battle of Lexington came. There General 
Washington reviewed the patriotic company 
of Yale students on his way to take com- 
mand of the Continental Army at Cambridge. 
There the soldiers drilled before marching ofif 
to war. There, too, the British soldiers rest- 
ed after their long march from West Haven 
on that hot July day in 1/79. Surely those 
were exciting days for the old Green ! 

After the Revolutionary War was over and 
independence had been won, New Haven be- 
came a city. That was in 1784. Roger 
Sherman, Avho signed the Declaration of In- 
dependence, was the first mayor. The 
streets were given names and people began 
to take more pride in the appearance of the 
Green.*** The old county house and jail were 
taken down and the ground where they stood 
leveled off. Then under the leadership of 
Mr. James Hillhouse,*-*^ one of the most public 
spirited citizens the city ever had, was be- 
gun those great improvements which have 
made New Haven famous as the " City of 
Elms " the world over.-^^ 



142 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Mr. Hillhoiise loved the beauty and grace- 
fulness of elm trees and knew the comfort of 
their shade. On his farm in Meriden were 
a great many young elm trees. Digging 
them up and bringing them to New Haven 
he planted them about the Green and along 
the streets of the city. He performed much 
of the labor himself. Willing boys held the 
trees while he shoveled in the dirt. Rever- 
end David Austin worked with Mr. Hill- 
house to adorn the city with trees. He plant- 
ed the inner rows of elms on the lower side 
of the Green. The most noted of the elms 
about the Green is the one which stands on 
the corner of Church and Chapel streets. 
A queer fellow named Jerry Allen brought it 
on his back from Hamden and sold it to 
]\Ir. Thaddeus Beecher for a pint of rum and 
a few trinkets. It is known as the Franklin 
Elm, for it was set out on the day that Ben- 
jamin Franklin died, April 17. 1790. A 
mere sapling when planted, it has grown to 
be a large and handsome tree, while its roots 
fill the bed of the little stream which once 



THE GREEN AND ITS CHANGES. I43 

flowed out of that corner of the Green. 
Long may it stand to shade the busiest cor- 
ner of the old market-place !*■"* 

After 1790 the Green saw many changes. 
Geese had never ceased to be a nuisance and 
a law was passed to keep them away. '' No 
goose or gander shall be allowed to go at 
large within the limits of New Haven town 
unless such goose or gander be well yoked 
with yoke twelve inches long under penalty 
of impounding (taking and shutting up) such 
goose or gander." The owner, to free his 
goose, had to pay a fine of five cents. This, 
it was hoped, would keep them off the Green. 
In 1798 the market-house which had stood 
for some years near the southeast corner, 
was taken down. Although the town was 
too poor to spend money for improvements 
during the early years of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, Mr. Hillhouse, Mr. Austin and Mr. 
Isaac Beers obtained permission to level and 
fence in the Green at their own expense. 
Protected by the wooden fence which was 
then built, the grass grew plentifully and was 



144 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

cut and sold each year. The money thus ob- 
tained was used to pay for the improve- 
ments. In 1846 the present iron fence took 
the place of the wooden one which was sold 
to the town of Milford and placed around the 
Milford green. 

The three churches now standing on the 
Green were all built in the year 18 14. Mr. 
Ithiel Towne was the architect of Trinity and 
Center churches. The latter is modelled af- 
ter an old church in London. At the time 
these churches were being erected the United 
States was at war with Great Britain. There 
is an interesting story that a vessel loaded 
w^ith lumber for Trinity Church was captured 
by a British war-ship while on its voyage to 
New Haven. When the British captain 
learned what use was to be made of the lum- 
ber he permitted the vessel to continue on her 
voyage unmolested. In 1821 a Methodist 
church was erected on the Green near the 
corner of Elm and College streets. When it 
was nearly completed a severe wind storm 
blew the roof off and wrecked the building. 



THE GREEN AND ITS CHANGES. I45 

It was immediately rebuilt and stood until 
1848. 

By the time New Haven had grown large 
enough to be a city the old graveyard had 
become very crowded. Until 1796 it was the 
only burial place in the town. In 1794 New 
Haven was visited by an epidemic of yellow 
fever and scores of persons died. All were 
buried silently and at night on the Green. 
This led people to see the need of another 
place for a burial ground. Mr. Hillhouse 
was the first to move in the matter. A plot 
of ground beyond Grove street was purchas- 
ed and arranged for a burial ground.*"* 
Since then the graveyard on the Green has 
almost entirely disappeared. The present 
Center Church was erected over a portion of 
it and the monuments of noted men and wom- 
en of old New Haven may still be seen in the 
crypt beneath this meeting house. ■'^ Several 
old gravestones still remain near the Dixwell 
monument back of the church. The rest 
were removed to the Grove Street Cemetery 
many years ago. Thus while all traces of the 



146 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

graves have been removed from the surface 
of the Green, hidden under its turf are the 
bones of over five thousand men, women, and 
children. 

In 1829 a marble State House was built 
on the upper Green. It was built in the style 
of a Greek temple. For many years it was 
the center of activity for old and young. 
The steep bank at one end made a favorite 
coasting place in winter and many who are 
still young can remember bumping down the 
icy marble steps in the anxious effort to make 
their sleds go a little farther toward Temple 
street, while their sisters and other boys' 
sisters looked on with mingled admiration 
and terror. The steps at the other end of the 
building served as a favorite lounging place 
and were often used as a platform by orators. 
Much to the sorrow of many of the citizens 
of the town, the handsome old ruin was taken 
down in 1889. The tender little " Consti- 
tutional Oak " planted on Arbor Day, 1902, 
alone marks the site of the old State House. 

Among the pleasant associations connect- 



T u i; G K :•: i-: x a .\ ij i r s c ii a x g i; s . 147 

ed with the historic Green are the visits of 
famous men to New Haven. The old Green 
has been honored by the presence of many 
presidents, generals, governors and states- 
men. In 1798 George Washington again 
visited New Haven as the President of the 
United States, and attended church on the 
Green. In 181 7 President James Monroe 
was there. President Andrew Jackson spent 
Sunday there in 1833 and was received with 
great honor at the State House. In 1824 
General Lafayette reviewed the militia on the 
Green. Louis Kossuth, the Hungarian pa- 
triot, was honored there. James Madison, 
John Quincy Adams, Martin VanBuren, 
James K. Polk, James Buchanan, Ulyses S. 
Grant, Rutherford B. Hayes, and Theodore 
Roosevelt, all Presidents of the United 
States, have walked under the shade of its 
beautiful elms. 

Trul}'- the old market-place is full of his- 
toric memories and fine traditions. Those 
ancient elms could tell wonderful stories of 
the past. The roar of cannon over its sur- 



148 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

face, the rattle of musketry among its trees, 
and the shouts of multitudes call to mind its 
service for independence and freedom. The 
songs of Christian children and the silence 
and sadness of throngs gathered to honor and 
mourn the nation's dead testify to the good 
influences which have come from it. The 
old Green stands for great deeds and great 
principles. It stands for God and truth and 
right. It stands for justice and law and or- 
der. Long and wide may its influence 
spread! 



CHAPTER X. 

How New Haven Celebrated the Fourth 
of July in the Year J 779. 

New Haven has good reason to remember 
the Revokitionary War. One of her wisest 
and most honored citizens, Roger Sherman, 
signed the Declaration of Independence. 
One of her bravest soldiers, David Wooster,-^** 
gave his life in defence of his native state. 
One of the manliest students in her famous 
college, Nathan Hale, regretted that he had 
but one life to give for his country. And 
that ambitious young patriot, who later, 
turned traitor to his country, Benedict Ar- 
nold,-^'' began the honorable part of his mili- 
tary career in New Haven. But there is still 
another reason why New Haven remembers 
the days that tried men's souls. It was the 
way she celebrated the Fourth of July, 1779. 



ICO STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

New Haven had shown a strong spirit of 
patriotism from the very beginning of the 
war. When the news of the battle of Lex- 
ington came in x'Vpril, 1776, Benedict Arnold, 
who lived in New Haven then, and was Cap- 
tain of the Governor's Foot Guards, called 
out his company and proposed to march at 
once to Cambridge. Forty of the men 
agreed to go, and Arnold asked the town 
of^cers to give them powder. Upon their 
refusal he drew up his company before them 
and demanded the keys of the powder-house, 
threatening to break open the doors and help 
himself if they refused again. The keys were 
delivered at once. Upon reaching Cam- 
bridge the little company was found to be the 
best armed and the best uniformed of all the 
American troops there. 

Soon after Arnold's company marched 
away, General Washington stopped at New 
Haven on his way to Cambridge. With 
him were General Lee and General Mifflin. 
They spent the night at ]\Ir. Beers' ta\'crn 
which stood where the New Haven House is 



I'AI klu'l ISiM IN 1779. 151 

now. These distinguished officers were es- 
corted out of town the next morning by a 
company of Yale students who had drilled 
before the Commander-in-Chief and had 
been praised by him. 

Before many months passed New Haven 
set up a beacon on the east side of the har- 
bor on what is now Beacon Hill in Fort 
Wooster Park. This was a signal fire and 
whenever it was necessary to give an alarm 
of danger it was lighted and could be seen 
by the people in all the surrounding country. 
At such times all who could, were expected 
to arm themselves and stand ready to defend 
the town. Three years went by while New 
Haven did her share in supplying men, food 
and clothing for the Continental Army. To 
help provide ammunition a powder mill was 
built at Westville. Meantime there was con- 
stant fear of an attack on the town for every- 
one realized that it would be an easy matter 
for the enemy to sail through the Sound and 
destroy towns along the shore. How 
real this danger was at length became evi- 



152 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

dent, for, in 1779, General Tryon, the Brit- 
ish governor of New York, began to make 
raids along the Connecticut coast, robbing 
and burning the towns. 

The Fourth of July fell on Sunday in the 
year 1779, and, in those days, as now, under 
such circumstances, the anniversary of the 
Declaration of Independence was celebrated 
on Monday, the fifth. On this particular 
Sunday evening in July, 1779, the leading 
young patriots of New Haven were making 
preparations to hold their celebration on the 
following day. There was to be a parade 
and the little military company was to drill 
on the Green. Cannon were to be fired and 
the church bells were to be rung. But 
while these plans were being made and the 
boys and girls of the town were eagerly look- 
ing forward to the fun on the morrow, a fleet 
of nearly fifty British war vesels with several 
thousand soldiers aboard was sailing through 
the Sound bound for New Haven; and the 
Fourth of July w-as celebrated in a very dif- 
ferent manner from what was planned or ex- 



PATRIOTISM IN 1/79- 153 

pected. Cannon were fired and bells were 
rung; but instead of marching in a parade, 
the militia marched to war. 

News of the coming of the British fleet 
reached the town late in the evening of that 
same July Sunday. At first many people 
thought they would not stop at New Haven, 
but before morning of the next day an alarm 
was sounded and news was announced that 
the enemy had anchored off the mouth of 
the harbor. Then all was excitement and 
confusion. Valuables of all kinds were hid- 
den in chimneys and feather beds or buried 
in the ground or put in wells. Furniture 
was hastily packed and loaded into wagons. 
By daylight people were fleeing to the coun- 
try, some to North Haven, others to Ham- 
den and Cheshire. Many went to East and 
West Rocks where they could watch the 
movements of the enemy. Some remained 
quietly at home because of sickness or old 
age. A few who were secretly friends of the 
British went out to welcome them. In their 
hurry and excitement some persons did very 



154 



STORIES OF OLD NEW II A VEX. 



strange things. One woman was seen run- 
ning out to the country carrying her pet cat 
in her arms while her children had loeen for- 
gotten and left at home. Another tried to 
save her tallow candles but the hot July sun 
melted them in her hands leaving* nothing 
but the wicks. Some one saw an old lady 
carrying a heavy bundle and inquired what 
she had. " Oh dear," she replied, " I have 
some of my nice salt pork ; I could not bear 
to have those Britishers eat it all up." 

Early Monday morning Reverend Ezra 
Stiles, the President of Yale College, mount- 
ed the tower of the college chapel, and with a 
spy-glass plainly saw the boats of the British 
landing soldiers at West Haven. There was 
no longer any doubt as to their plans. They 
intended to attack and plunder New Haven 
and possibly burn it. The patriotic citizens 
did not once think of surrender and made 
ready to defend their homes. The Gover- 
nor's Foot Guards and the Artillery company 
were called out and, under the command of 
Colonel Sabin, Captain James Hillhouse and 



PATRIOTISM IN 1779- I55 

Captain Phinehas Bradley, marched out to 
West Bridge on the road leadini^ to West 
Haven. A number of students joined their 
ranks to help repel the enemy. The artil- 
lery company planted the cannon at the 
bridge to command the road across the mead- 
ows. The Foot Guards went on towards the 
West Haven Green where the British had 
halted for breakfast. As they crossed the 
bridge, Reverend Naphtali Daggett, a pa- 
triotic old man who had l)een President of 
Yale College, rode swiftly by them mounted 
on his old black mare, holding his gun ready 
to shoot the first redcoat he met. He went 
to the top of a small hill near the road, took 
up his position in some bushes, and waited 
for the enemy to come. 

The British met with some little resistance 
when they landed at West Haven, but soon 
reached the village Green. Here they cap- 
tured the village minister, Mr. Williston, 
who, in trying to escape, fell over a stone 
wall and broke his leg. The soldiers were 
about to kill him when one of their ofificers, 



156 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Adjutant Campbell, interfered and saved his 
life. He then ordered the surgeon of his 
regiment to set the broken limb. A short 
distance beyond the Green they were met by 
Captain Hillhouse and his men, who fired on 
them from behind trees and stone walls. At 
Milford Hill, Adjutant Campbell, who had 
just shown such mercy and kindness to the 
village minister, w^as killed.*** 

Outnumbered by the British the Americans 
v^^ere compelled to retreat, and withdrew 
across the bridge which was then torn down 
to prevent the enemy from crossing. The 
patriotic old President of Yale would not 
leave his post and escape with the rest, but 
continued to fire on the redcoats until he 
was surrounded and captured l)y them. 
Their officer was so astonished to see the old 
man with his long black coat fighting so 
bravely that he cried out, " What are you 
doing there, you old fool, firing on his Majes- 
ty's troops?" "Exercising the rights of 
w^ar," replied the learned warrior. " If I let 
you go this time, you rascal," said the ofii- 



PATRIOTISM IN IJJ^. I57 

ccr, " will you ever fire again on the troops 
of his Majesty?" "Nothing more likely," 
came the quick reply. One of the soldiers 
then tried to hit him with his bayonet, but 
]Mr. Daggett begged so hard for his life that 
he was spared. They beat him very cruelly 
with their guns, however, and knocked him 
down. Then they compelled him to join 
them on the hot dusty march to the town. 

When the British found the road across 
the meadows well guarded by cannon and 
the bridge across the river destroyed, they 
marched along the west side of the river to 
Westville. One of the Tories who had gone 
out to meet them acted as their guide. On 
the way they were fired on by patriots under 
the command of Aaron Burr, a visitor in 
New Haven at the time and later Vice-Presi- 
dent of the United States. The rest of the 
Americans kept abreast of the enemy on the 
east side of the river and opposed their 
crossing. On reaching Westville, some of 
the redcoats tried to capture and destroy the 
powder mill there, but were driven of¥ and 



150 STORIES OF OLD N.EW HAVEN. 

forced to give up the attempt. The march 
from Westville to what is now Broadway 
was a continuous battle. Every hour the 
ranks of the Americans were increased by 
the arrival of patriots from the surrounding 
country. At Ditch Corner, where Whalley 
and Dixwell avenues come together, there 
Avas very sharp fighting. At Broadway the 
British broke ranks and began their work of 
plundering and destroying property. Help- 
less men and women were robbed and ill- 
treated. One poor man, crazy from sick- 
ness, had his tongue cut out because he did 
not answer a soldier's questions. At the cor- 
ner of Chapel and York streets they planted 
cannon and fired down the street several 
times. At about one o'clock, tired from their 
long and harassing march, they reached the 
center of the town. The aged President 
Daggett, weak and helpless from the weari- 
some tramp, was carried into one of the 
houses near the Green and laid on a bed to 
die. The brave old fighter got well, how- 



PATRIOTISM IN I779. 1 59 

ever, and was able to preach in the college 
chapel the next year. 

The British and Hessian soldiers spent the 
remainder of the day plundering the town. 
They broke into the houses, stole money and 
watches, silver spoons and buckles and cloth- 
ing. They cut beads from the necks of 
frightened women and tore earrings from 
their ears. They cut feather beds to pieces 
to find hidden treasures. They destroyed 
furniture and broke doors and windows. 
What food they could not use or carry away, 
they wasted. They drank what wines and 
other liquors they could find and many of 
them became drunk and committed out- 
rages which otherwise they might not have 
done. Amidst such distressing scenes, and 
under the scorching rays of the hot July sun, 
that memorable day passed. Night put an 
end to most of the revelry for the tired plun- 
derers were glad to rest from their brutal 
labors. 

The British troops who landed at West 
Haven were under the command of General 



l6o STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Garth, ^^^lile they were marching to West- 
vllle, another body of the king's troops were 
landing on the east side of the harbor near 
what is now Light House Point. These 
were under the command of General Tryon. 
Their landing was opposed by a few Ameri- 
cans armed with muskets and one small can- 
non. With great difficulty they fought their 
way along the shore by Morris Cove and a 
small fort at Black Rock (now Fort Hale) 
and gained possession of Beacon Hill.-^** 
From here they made raids on the neighbor- 
ing farm houses, burning and plundering. 
Some went as far as the village of East Ha- 
ven doing great damage. 

Among the Americans who fought against 
the British in East Haven that day was 
Chandler Pardee, a young man, who, when 
the alarm was given on Sunday evening, wan 
making a call dressed in his best Sunday 
clothes and having on a pair of fine shoes 
with silver buckles. Without stopping to 
change his shoes he seized his musket and 
hurried to join the rest of the patriots in de- 



PATRIOTISM IN 177^. l6l 

fending' their homes. As he and his compan- 
ions, outnumbered by the enemy, were slowly 
driven back towards the village, they passed 
through a swamp. Here young Pardee 
made a misstep and one foot sank into the 
soft mud. As he pulled it out his shoe came 
off. Anxious to save the silver buckle, he 
stopped to find it. This nearly cost him his 
life. As he knelt down to feel in the mud a 
bullet struck him and passed almost through 
his body. The British soldiers left him 
thinking he would surely die. But he man- 
aged to crawl to a sheltering tree and after 
a few hours was found and cared for. To 
everyone's surprise he recovered and later 
served his country again as a soldier. 

As the militia from the surrounding towns 
were fast joining the ranks of the Americans, 
the British generals decided to leave New 
Haven as soon as possible. They feared 
they would be cut off from their ships if they 
staid any longer. So, early Tuesday morn- 
ing. General Garth ordered his soldiers to 
meet on the Green. Those who were sober 



1 62 STORIES OF O L D N E W HAVEN. 

were taken across to East Haven, and. with 
the forces ah-eady there nnder General Try- 
on, were sent to burn houses and barns in the 
village center. The remainder were march- 
ed down to Long Wharf and taken by boats 
to the ships in the harbor. Before they left 
they set fire to the stores on the dock ; and 
to protect themselves they threatened to 
burn the rest of the town if they were fired 
upon. It is said, too, that General Garth 
was unwilling to destroy New Haven because 
it was " such a pretty town." 

The same day General Tryon was driven 
from Beacon Hill by the militiamen and forc- 
ed to retreat to the ships. On his retreat he 
burned the barracks at Black Rock. By 
evening all the enemy's troops were back on 
their ships, and the next morning they sailed 
away to attack and burn Fairfield and Nor- 
walk. 

As a result of this British attack on Nev/ 
Ha\en, twenty-seven Americans were killed, 
seventeen wounded and propert}' to the \al- 
ue of v$ioo.ooo was dcstroved. The crneltv 



PATRIOTISM IN 1779- ^^3 

and brutality of the Hessian soldiers was nev- 
er forgotten by those who suffered from it ; 
and it only served to arouse the hatred of 
the people and make them more determined 
than ever to win their independence and make 
it possible for their descendants to celebrate 
the Fourth of July in peace if not in quiet. 
Nearly a century and a quarter has passed 
since that time and every year the anniversary 
of the Declaration of Independence has been 
observed in some way by New Haven. But 
never has it been, and, let us hope, never may 
it be again, celebrated as it was in the year 
1779. 



CHAPTER XI. 

How New Haven Defended the Mendi 
Men. 

On the west coast of Africa, not far from 
Sierra Leone is the Httle country of Mendi, 
where there Hved, more than sixty years ago, 
some very black negroes who played a much 
mere prominent part in history than they 
ever expected or desired, and who form the 
subject of this story. Early in the year 1839 
these negroes were kidnapped by some Span- 
ish slave traders and locked in a barracoon, 
or slave warehouse, at a place called Dum- 
bomo. Shortly afterward they were placed, 
chained together, on a Portugese slave vessel 
and taken to Havana, Cuba, where they were 
sold for $450 apiece to two Cubans named 
Ruiz and Montez. 

The slave trade was unlawful in Spain and 



DEFENSE OF THE MENDI MEN. 1 65 

the Spanish colonies at that time, but in the 
West Indies slave traders easily bribed the 
Spanish governors and bought and sold ne- 
groes regularly. Ruiz and Montez planned 
to take their slaves to another place in Cuba 
and again sell them or set them to work on 
plantations. Hiring a small schooner called 
the Amistad (meaning, in English, " The 
Friendship ") they put the Mendi slaves 
aboard together with a quantity of merchan- 
dise, and set sail from Havana June 28, 1839, 
bound for Guanaja, a small Cuban town not 
far away. The voyage was to be so short 
that little food and w^ater were carried and 
the negroes were not chained. How cruel 
and careless this was, events soon proved. 
Two of the negroes, becoming very thirsty, 
stole and drank some water. As a punish- 
ment they were severely whipped. One of 
them then ventured to ask the cook where 
they were going. He replied that they were 
being taken away to be killed and eaten. 
This frightened them for they believed it. 
They immediately formed a plot to gain their 



1 66 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

freedom. In this they were led by their 
chief, whose name was Cinque [Cin-kay]. 
He was a very strong and active fellow, and 
a match for any two men on the vessel. Ke 
was inteUigent and brave as well. 

On the second night of the voyage it was 
quite dark and rainy. It seemed a favorable 
time to carry out their plot. So several of 
the stronger negroes armed themselves with 
some long knives which they found on board, 
and which were commonly used to cut sugar 
cane. In the middle of the night they sud- 
denly rose, attacked the captain and killed 
him. The noise of the fight aroused the 
rest of the crew, who, supposing the negroes 
were hungry, ordered the cook to give them 
food. But as soon as they discovered the 
real meaning of the trouble, they tried to es- 
cape. Most of them got away in a small 
boat but the cook was killed. Ruiz and 
Montez were overpowered and captured. 
Their lives were spared, although one of them 
was badly wounded. 

Cinque and his companions thus gained 



DEFENSE OF THE M E N D I MEN. 1 6/ 

possession of the vessel and compelled their 
two white captives, who had so shortly before 
been their masters, to steer directly for 
Africa, their home. They knew that it lay 
in the direction of the rising sun and " three 
moons " distant. Ruiz and Alontez obeyed 
their dusky captors and sailed east durinsT 
the day, but at nip^ht when the negroes could 
not tell in what direction they were going, 
they sailed northwest, hoping to meet a 
friendly ship. Meantime the blacks amused 
themselves in various ways on board the 
schooner. They adorned each other with the 
bright colored silks and the glass beads 
which they found among the merchandise. 
A number of looking-glasses gave them 
special delight. The books they could not 
read, but they enjoyed looking at the pic- 
tures in them. For food they used the sup- 
plies of raisins, bread, rice, fruit and olives. 
For more than two months they continued 
on their zig-zag voyage, suffering many hard- 
ships. Some of their number became sick 
and ten of them died. When thev at last 



l68 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

reached land they were far from their native 
Africa. The Amistad came to anchor at the 
eastern end of Long Island near Montauk 
Point. No one on board knew where they 
were. Cinque and a few others went ashore 
to buy food and water from the farmers near- 
by. One of them named Banna, could speak 
a little English and made known their wants 
to the white men who met them on the shore. 
Cinque told Banna to ask if that country 
made slaves. When they learned that it 
was a " free country " they were very much 
relieved, and when told that there were no 
Spaniards there, they leaped and shouted for 
joy. The Long Island farmers were fright- 
ened by these strange actions and ran for 
their guns, Banna soon quieted them by 
telling them that he and his companions 
meant no harm. They then cooked some 
food on the shore and sought to hire one of 
the white men, a sea captain, to take them 
back to Africa. When they returned to the 
vessel they took two dogs which they paid 
for with some Spanish gold pieces. 



DEFENSE OF THE MENDI MEN. 169 

Meantime a United States Coast Survey 
vessel, the Washing'ton, which was cruising 
in that ncighljorhood, watched the strange 
black schooner, and, thinking she was ashore 
or in distress, sent a boat's crew to help her. 
The American sailors were surprised to find 
the deck of the Amistad occupied by negroes 
armed with knives. An ofificer drove them 
into the hold of the vessel at the point of his 
pistol. Cinque, hoping to escape, jumped 
overboard with the two dogs, but was cap- 
tured and handcuffed. Ruiz and Montez 
were soon found imprisoned and at once 
released. When their story was told the 
Amistad was taken across the Sound to New 
London harbor and news of the affair sent 
to the United States Marshal in New Haven. 
Cinque was very much excited by the new 
turn of their fortunes and loudly urged his 
followers to rise against their captors. This 
was prevented, however. In a few days a 
charge of murder and piracy was brought 
against the negroes and they were taken to 
New Haven to await trial. They were plac- 



1^0 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEX. 

ed in the old county jail which stood where 
the city hall is now. 

When the people of New Haven learned 
what queer prisoners were shut up in their 
jail they became very much interested in 
them. Such a crowd of negroes only lately 
come from their far African homes was a 
curious sight in New England. They num- 
bered about forty and three of them were 
young girls. Some of them were sick and 
none of them had had sufficient to eat or 
much to wear. So doctors were sent to care 
for them and they were provided with prop- 
er food and clothing. They liked the corn 
and rice, but they didn't know what to do 
with the white men's shirts and pantaloons, 
for they seldom wore clothes in their own 
tropical climate. It was some time before 
they learned how to put them on and never 
felt very comfortable in them. The little 
girls wound the shawls which were given 
them into turbans for their heads. 

Although one of the Mendi men could un- 
derstand a few English words, he could not 



DEFENSE OF THE MEND I MEN. I7I 

speak the language well enough to tell the 
story of their unhappy life in slavery or their 
dreadful voyage in search of freedom and 
home. They were represented by Ruiz 
and Alontez as fugitives from slavery and 
bloodthirsty pirates. They could not an- 
swer this false charge for they were unable 
to tell their side of the story. Because they 
were so helpless, they received a great deal 
of sympathy. Many people who were be- 
ginning to look upon slavery as a great wrong 
wanted to free the unfortunate captives. 
The first thing to do, however, was to find 
some one who could talk with them and 
learn their story. Professor Gibbs, of Yale 
College, who was greatly interested in them, 
succeeded in doing this. He learned the 
sounds made by the negroes in counting 
from one to ten. Then he searched the 
ships in the harbor to find some negro sailor 
who could understand the language in which 
those sounds were used in counting. Un- 
able to find such a man in New Haven har- 
bor he went to New York where he was 



172 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

more successful. On a British ship, the 
Buzzard, there was a negro sailor boy named 
James Covey, who knew the Mendi language 
and could talk English as well. The 
British captain permitted him to be taken 
to New Haven where he acted as interpreter. 
When Cinque and his companions heard this 
boy talking to them in their native tongue 
they jumped up and down with joy and left 
their breakfasts uneaten, for now they could 
tell the white men all that had happened to 
them. 

The story was soon told. \\'ilh the help 
of Professor Gibbs and the boy, Covey, they 
related how they had been captured by the 
Spanish slave dealers ; how they had been 
chained in cramped positions between the 
narrow decks of the Portugese vessel, and 
vinegar and powder rubbed on their blister- 
ed skin when they complained ; how they 
had been sold in Plavana ; how they had been 
frighlcnod by the cruel cook of the Amistad ; 
how they had fought for their froedc^ni and 
borne hardships on their long and fruitless 



DEFENSE OF THE MENDI MEN. 



173 



voyage ; and how they had at last fallen into 
the hands of the Americans and been put in 
prison. People listened to the account with 
indignation. Good men were more deter- 
mined than ever to defend and free them. 
Under the lead of Mr. Lewis Tappan, a 
wealthy Abolitionist, of New York, money 
was raised and lawyers were hired to plead 
for them before the courts. Roger S. Bald- 
win, of New Haven, labored earnestly to de- 
fend them in this way, and won great honor 
by his service. 

The first trial of the Mendi captives was 
held in Hartford, in September, 1839. The 
prisoners were taken by canal boat to Farm- 
ington, thence by wagons to Hartford.^" 
Two questions were to be settled by the court. 
The first was, whether the negroes could be 
tried in the United States for the killing of 
the captain and cook of the Amistad. The 
court decided that, as the murder was com- 
mitted on a Spanish vessel they could be tried 
only in Spanish courts. The second ques- 
tion was, whether the officers of the United 



174 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

States Coast Survey vessel, the Washington, 
ought to be paid what is called salvage for 
rescuing Ruiz and Montez with their negro 
slaves of the Amistad. The court decided 
that they should be paid for saving the ves- 
sel but that the men, women and children 
could not be sold for- their benefit, even 
though they were black. 

There was still another question to be de- 
cided regarding the Mendi men and one 
which created much interest and discussion 
throughout the whole country. The Span- 
ish government had demanded that the ship 

Amistad be surrendered to Spanish officers 
and that the negroes be sent back to Cuba 
as slaves. What should be done? The peo- 
ple of the North declared that these free ne- 
groes ought not to be sent into slavery, but 
returned to Africa, while the slave holding 
Southerners thought that the Spanish claim 
was just and that the prisoners should be 
given up. The question caused much vexa- 
tion to Martin VanBuren, the President of 
the United States, for he was anxious to 



DEFENSE OF THE MENDl MEN. 1 75 

please the South without offending the 
North. 

The United States court at New Haven 
was to decide this third question. So the 
captives were taken back to their old quar- 
ters in New Haven. As the Hartford court 
had decided that they had broken no laws 
of this country, they were allowed greater 
freedom than before. On pleasant days the 
jailor took them out on the Green for exer- 
cise. Crowds of curious people gathered to 
watch them and laughed at their queer an- 
tics. It was as good as a circus. The Afri- 
cans were short, well-built fellows, and black 
as coal. Cinque amused the crowd by run- 
ning and jumping into the air and then, turn- 
ing several somersaults before landing on his 
feet again. Many of them were tattooed 
and wore bright ornaments. Efforts were 
made by several persons to teach them. 
Several of them did learn to read and write. 
When winter came they looked in wonder 
and awe at the deep snow but did not suffer 
from the cold although they wore little 



176 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

clothing. One of their number, named 
Kaperi, died, and his funeral was attended 
by many of the citizens of the city. 

When the time for the next trial came 
there was much excitement. Hundreds of 
people went to the court house every day to 
listen. At the same time lying anchored in 
the harbor was a United States war-ship, the 
Grampus, sent by President VanBuren at 
the request of the Spanish Minister to take 
the negroes back to Cuba as soon as the 
trial ended, for it was expected that the court 
would decide the case against the captives. 
The slave holders were disappointed in their 
expectations, however. The court decided 
that Cinque and his companions were free 
and ordered them taken back to Africa. The 
President was unwilling to accept this de- 
cision and the case was then appealed to the 
Supreme Court of the United States. The 
Mendi men were very happy when told of 
the decision of the New Haven court, but 
tliey could not understand why they were to 



DEFENSE OF THE ilENDl .M E X . I 77 

be kept in prison so many months longer. 
W'liile they were waiting for their case to be 
heard before the Supreme Court, they were 
taken out to Westvihe, for the old jail was 
to be pulled down. There, one of their num- 
ber, a boy named Ka-le, wrote a letter to Mr. 
John Ouincy Adams. Mr. Adams, who had 
been President of the United States, was 
preparing to defend them before the Supreme 
Court. This letter read as follows: 

New Haven, Jan. 4, 1841. 
Dear Friend Mr. Adams: — 

I want to write a letter to you because you love 
Mendi people, and you talk to the grand court. We 
want to tell you one thing. Jose Ruiz say we born 
in Havana, he tell lie. We stay in Havana 10 days 
and 10 nights, we stay no more. We all born in 
Mendi — we no understand the Spanish language. 
Mendi people been in America 17 moons. We talk 
American language little, not very good; we write 
every day; we write plenty letters; we read most all 
time; we read all Matt, and Mark and Luke and John, 
and plenty of little books. We love books very 
much. We want you to ask the court what we have 
done wrong. What for Americans keep us in prison. 
Some people say Mendi people crazy; Mendi people 
dolt, because we no talk American language. Merica 
people no talk Mendi language; Merica people dolt? 



i7< 



STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 



They tell bad things about Mendi people and we no 
understand. Some men say, Mendi people very hap- 
py because they laugh and have plenty to eat. Mr. 
Pendleton (the jailor) come and Mendi people all 
look sorry because they think about Mendi land and 
friends we no see. now Mr. P. say Mendi people 
angry; white men afraid of Mendi people. The 
Mendi people no look sorry again — that why we laugh. 
But Mendi people feel sorry, O, we can't tell how 
sorry. Some people say, Mendi people no got souls. 
Why we feel bad, we got no souls? We want to be 
free very much. 

Dear friend Mr. Adams, you have children, you 
have friends, you love them, you feel very sorry if 
Mendi people come and carry them all to Africa. 
We feel bad for our friends and our friends all feel 
bad for us. Americans no take us on ship. We on 
shore, and Americans tell us slave ship catch us. They 
say we make you free. If they make us free they tell 
true, if they no make us free they tell lie. If Ameri- 
can people give us free, we glad, if they no give us 
free, we sorry, we sorry for Mendi people little, we 
sorry for American people great deal because God 
punish liars. We want you to tell court that Mendi 
people no want to go back to Havana, we no want to 
be killed. Dear Friend we want you to know how 
we feel. Mendi people think think think. Nobody 
know what he think; teacher he know, we tell him 
some. Mendi people have got souls. We think we 
know God punish us if we tell lie; we speak truth. 
What for Mendi people afraid? Because they got 
souls. Cook say he kill, he eat Mendi people — we 
afraid — we kill cook, then captain kill one man with 



defensl: of the mendi men. 179 

knife, and cut Mendi people plenty. We never kill cap- 
tain, he no kill us. If court ask who brought Mendi 
people to America? we bring ourselves. Ceci hold 
the rudder. All we want is make us free. 
Your friend, 

Ka-le. 

In March, 1841, nearly two years after the 
Mendi men had been stolen from their homes 
in Africa, the Supreme Court of the United 
States decided that they were not slaves, 
and ordered them to be set free. The first 
news of the decision reached New Haven in 
a newspaper. The Marshall at once an- 
nounced to his prisoners that the " big 
court " had set them free. Cinque was in 
some doubt about it at first. " Paper lie 
sometimes," he said. But when they learn- 
ed that it was really true there was great 
rejoicing and they all fell on their knees in 
prayer and thanksgiving. 

Although they were set free, the poor 
Mendi men were far from home and knew 
not how to reach there. Their old vessel, 
the Amistad, had been sold and they had no 
money. " Tell the American people," they 



l80 STORIES OF OLD N,EW HAVENT. 

said, " that we very very very much want to 
go to our home." Their friends then set to 
work to raise money to send them back to 
Mendi. Some of them were carried about 
the country on exhibition, while the rest went 
to Farmington, Connecticut, to work. At 
length enough money was collected to pay 
their passage and they returned to Africa. 
With them went two missionaries, who es- 
tablished a school in Mendi. Cinque went 
back to his savage life again, but acted as 
interpreter for the mission. One of the little 
girls became a teacher in the school. None 
of them ever forgot their terrible experiences 
on the Amistad or how they were cared for 
and defended by the white men at New Ha- 
ven. 



CHAPTER XII. 

How the People of New Haven Lived in 
Colonial Days. 

Could those pious Puritans who landed at 
Quinnipiac in 1638 return to life and spend 
a day in modern New Haven, they would 
hardly know where they were or what to do 
with themselves. They would need to learn 
again how to live. The uses of almost 
everything would be unknown to them, and 
they would require a guide to show them 
around and explain things. If they came 
again by boat they would find that their old 
landing place was more than a mile from 
the harbor, and that the creek leading to it 
had entirely disappeared. Wondering, and 
probably somewhat frightened by the 
strangeness of their surroundings, they 
would seek the old market-place, the present 
Green. 



l82 STORIES OF OLD NEW II A VEX. 

First the tall buildings and modern brick 
houses would astonish these old Puritan vis- 
itors. There were large houses in New Ha- 
ven when they lived there in the seventeenth 
century — larger than those in most of the 
other New England settlements ; but they 
were built of wood and were not as com- 
fortable or convenient as modern houses. 
The rooms were large but the floors were 
bare or sprinkled with sand. Very few peo- 
ple could afford carpets. Mr. Eaton had 
some but he was a rich man. 

The furniture in these early homes was 
very plain. The chairs were hard and 
straight-backed ; children usually sat upon 
benches both at home and in school. The 
beds were not as comfortable as modern 
ones; there were no springs on them, and in 
winter, before going to bed, it was necessary 
to warm them with a warming pan. There 
were no furnaces or stoves in those days ; 
and there was no coal. The fire in the great 
fire-place served for both heating and cook- 
ing. It was difficult to heat the big rooms 



M ODE O F L 1 F E 1 N COLONIAL D A Y S . 1 83 

in winter for most of the heat from the fire- 
place went up the chimney. Water often 
froze in another part of the room and it was 
necessary to keep close to the fire to keep 
warnL The windows were small and, at 
first, covered with oiled paper. When glass 
could be obtained it was very imperfect and 
made objects look blurred and indistinct. 

These visiting settlers of old New Haven 
who required two weeks to move from Bos- 
ton to Ouinnipiac in 1638 would be unable 
to understand how the same journey could 
be made in three or four hours to-day. Rail- 
roads and trolley-cars would seem marvelous 
to them. To make a journey was a very 
great undertaking in their day. The easiest 
way to travel was by water. When that was 
impossible, walking or riding horse-back was 
necessary. Many years passed before peo- 
ple could travel far in wheeled carts; even 
then the roads were so rough that traveling 
was slow and dangerous. Horses or carts 
frequently were mired and sometimes travel- 



184 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

ers were tipped over in swollen streams. 
That, of course, was very unpleasant. 

These old New Haven colonists would be 
interested in the modern method of supply- 
ing people with water. The network of pipes 
extending to all parts of the city would puz- 
zle them. Water was brought by hand in 
wooden pails or leather buckets from near- 
by springs or streams, while they were build- 
ing New Haven. As soon as they could 
find time they dug wells near their houses 
and built wellsweeps with which to draw 
water. A wellsweep was made by setting 
a forked stake upright in the ground a short 
distance from the well. Across this was fas- 
tened a long i)ole in such a manner that one 
arm was much longer than the other and 
reached high into the air. The shorter end 
was usually weighted with a heavy stone or 
log. On the end of the long arm was tied 
a slender pole to which a bucket was attach- 
ed. By pulling down the tall sweep by 
means of the slender pole the bucket was 
lowered into the well; the heavy weight on 




AN OI.l) WKI.l.SWKKl'. 



MODE OF LIFE IN COLONIAL DAYS. 18$ 

the short arm of the sweep helped to raise 
it again. A few of these old-fashioned well- 
sweeps may he seen in the country around 
New Haven to-day. 

These Puritan founders would he dazzled 
by the gas and electric lights of the modern 
city. The ordinary kerosene oil lamp would 
amaze them ; they would not know even how 
to scratch a match. To light a fire was not 
an easy thing to do in colonial days. If the 
fire in the fire-place went out, the easiest 
way to start it again was to send some one 
with a pan or piece of green bark to fetch 
glowing coals from a neighbor's hearthfire. 
The only way to start a new fire was to strike 
a piece of flint and steel together and let the 
spark thus made catch on a piece of tinder 
or cotton. To do this successfully requfred 
great skill. It would be difficult for any- 
one to do it now-a-days. 

Pine knots and tallow candles furnished 
the colonists with light, A pine knot was a 
very dirty and smoky thing, but many an old 
Puritan minister wrote his long sermons 



l86 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

with the aid of such a hght. Candle making 
was an important household duty. Every 
bit of tallow was carefully saved and melted. 
The candle "wicks were made of hemp or cot- 
ton, and were dipped in the hot tallow, then 
taken out and allowed to cool. This was 
done over and over again until the candle 
was of the right size. Sometimes the melt- 
ed tallow was poured into molds. All can- 
dles were carefully laid away and sparingly 
used. How valuable they were considered 
is clearly shown by the proverb, " Don't burn 
the candle at 'both e.nds." 

The different styles of dress worn at pres- 
ent would seem peculiar to Puritans of the 
seventeenth century. The men of that early 
time wore knee-breeches and shoes with sil- 
ver buckles and wooden heels. All cloth was 
made at home and all clothing made from 
" home-spun." Spinning was an important 
part of a Puritan girl's education and weav- 
ing was the chief home-industry. The set- 
tlers of New Haven wore finer raim.ent than 
those of the other New England colonies 



MODE OF LIFE IN COLONIAL DAYS. iS/ 

because many of them were well-to-do mer- 
chants; as a class they were accustomed to 
richer garments than farmers or sailors. The 
New Haven Court never passed laws for- 
bidding people to wear expensive clothes as 
was done in other places. No doubt bright 
colors and ruffled collars were frequently 
seen in the first church that stood on the 
Green. 

It would surprise these early dwellers in 
colonial New Haven to hear every man ad- 
dressed as " Mister " to-day. They were ac- 
customed to hear Theophilus Eaton and men 
of his rank only, called " Mister." The dif- 
ferent ranks to which people belonged in 
colonial society were strictly marked. Only 
those men, who, to-day, would be addressed 
as "Honorable," were called "Mister;" a 
man of ordinary rank was known as " Good- 
man " when New Haven was settled. Peo- 
ple sat in church according to their rank 
and it was a serious social offence for a per- 
son to sit in the wrong pew. Great respect 
was paid to persons of high rank in public 



l88 STORIES OF OLD N,EW HAVEN. 

gatherings, on the street and even in the 
home. Children were not expected to speak 
in their presence and always stood aside 
when they passed. 

Should these visiting founders of New Ha- 
ven be invited out to dinner much of the food 
served would be strange to them and the 
dishes unfamiliar. China was rare in New 
Haven so early in its history. Plates were 
made of square or round pieces of wood hol- 
lowed out, and were called " trenchers." 
Pitchers were wooden, too, and usually call- 
ed " tankards." Forks were not used at 
early colonial dinners as most of the food 
was prepared in such form that it could be 
eaten with a spoon. Potatoes were not 
thought fit to eat by the New England colo- 
nists ; even cattle were not allowed to have 
them. Tea, coffee and chocolate did not 
come into common use until long after New 
Plaven was founded. Maple sugar was used 
for sweetening as other kinds were very rare. 
Little butter was used, but cheese and milk 
were plentiful. The Indians taught the white 



MODE OF LIFE IN COLONIAL DAYS. 1S9 

settlers how to grow corn and prepare it for 
eating. At first this was the " staff of hfe." 
The abundance of fish and game furnished 
the colonists with meat ; wild turkeys and 
pigeons were very numerous. 

Clocks and watches would be unfamiliar 
objects to the founders of New Haven. 
They had no watches ; and there were few 
clocks in their day. ]\Ir. Davenport owned 
a clock at the time of his death, but whether 
or not he brought it to Quinnipiac when he 
came is not known. The colonists used sun- 
dials and noon-marks to tell the time of day. 
The ordinary family clock was the noon- 
mark. It consisted of a mark on the floor 
in a doorway or on a windowsill where the 
shadow of the sun fell at noon. 

Newspapers would be entirely strange to 
the New Haven colonists. The only way 
to obtain news in colonial days was by means 
of letters or chance travelers. When any- 
one received a letter from England or an- 
other colony he usually passed it around 
among his neighbors or read it to a crowd 



190 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

gathered at the inn. Travelers entertained 
the men of the vihage by telhng them the 
latest news from distant settlements or for- 
eiern lands. Sometimes this " latest news " 
was many months old. 

Could these visiting Puritans of old New 
Haven remain over Sunday in the modern 
city they would hardly realize that it was 
the Sabbath Day. Sunday was the most im- 
portant day of all the week with them. 
" Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it 
holy " was one of the Ten Commandments 
and was strictly obeyed in all Puritan set- 
tlements. The Sabbath began Saturday 
evening because the Bible story of the crea- 
tion of the world says, " The evening and the 
morning were the first day." There are 
many still living who can remember when 
that was the custom ; a few old persons ob- 
serve it even to-day. 

Saturday was a very busy day with these 
strict Puritans. Food was prepared, the 
house cleaned, the floors freshly sanded and 
the wood brought in for over Sunday. As 



MODE OF LIFE IN COLONIAL DAYS. IQI 

soon as the first star appeared Saturday night 
all unnecessary work ceased and quiet reign- 
ed in the community. Sunday was a day of 
rest but not of recreation. Everyl)ody was 
up bright and early ready for church. At the 
beat of the drum they started out, walking 
slowly and solemnly. None were allowed to 
stay at home except on account of severe 
sickness or accident. Woe to the lazy or 
indifferent who were missing from their 
pews ! In church all the men sat on one side 
and all the women on the other. Young 
men sat in the rear seats and servants in 
the gallery. Boys were seated together, us- 
ually on the pulpit stairs, and an officer call- 
ed a tithingman was appointed to watch them 
and keep them quiet. Any noisy or unruly 
youngsters were sure to be prodded with a 
long stick by the tithingman. The services 
lasted several hours and must have been 
very tiresome to restless children. The 
prayers were sometimes more than an hour 
long and the sermons still longer. In win- 
ter it was difficult to keep warm, for the 



192 STORIES OF OLD XEW HAVEN. 

churches were not heated. To keep their 
toes from freezing women carried with them 
small foot stoves or metal boxes containing 
a few hot coals. Men kept on their hats in 
church except when Mr. Davenport announc- 
ed his text ; then they stood up and took 
them off. 

As the Sabbath began Saturday evening, 
so it ended Sunday evening. Just as soon 
as the first star could be dimly spied by the 
boys and girls, the severe restraint of the 
day was removed. Then was the time for 
neighbors to make friendly calls and young 
men to court Puritan maidens. All court- 
ing was done under the watchful eyes of the 
stern father or strict mother, however. It 
was the custom for those intending to mar- 
ry to have their names " called out " in meet- 
ing beforehand. Ministers were not allowed 
to marry people in those days ; only magis- 
trates could do that. 

The children who lived in New Haven two 
hundred and fifty years ago must have found 
tlie days much longer than they would now. 



MODE OF LIFE IN COLONIAL DAYS. I93 

They had their games of hopscotch and tag 
and the rest but no toys or picture books. 
They were not allowed to celebrate Christ- 
mas and never had visits from Santa Claus. 
The boys never played baseball or football 
as they do to-day ; and they never " went in 
swimming." The girls had no dolls except 
those they made for themselves out of wool- 
en rags, and they were not allowed to become 
very fond of these, for their mothers did not 
think it right. They never enjoyed the 
pleasures and excitements of birthday par- 
ties or children's entertainments; they were 
taught to think of more serious matters. 

Puritan children did have their times of 
enjoyment, nevertheless. The early settlers 
of New Haven did not forget that " All work 
and no play makes Jack a dull boy," and 
they did provide some holidays. There was 
no noisy Fourth of July, of course, but chil- 
dren did have a good time and nice things 
to eat on Thanksgiving Day. Another en- 
joyable day was " Training-day." which came 
six times a year and furnished much excite- 



194 STOKIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

ment. It was fun for the children, (and the 
older folks as well), to watch the train-band 
drill and see the soldiers run races, engage in 
jumping contests and take part in other ath- 
letic games. After all, when compared with 
the pleasures of the boj^s and girls of the 
twentieth century, these children of the Puri- 
tan founders of New Haven must have had a 
very stupid time; but, in spite of their hard- 
ships and discomforts they grew to be 
strong, brave and true-hearted men and 
women. 



APPENDIX. 



Page 32, No. i. — Landing Place. 

A marble tablet commemorating the landing of the 
settlers of New Haven in 1638 has been placed on 
the brick building at the corner of College and 
George streets. 

Page 42, No. 2. — Hcme Lots of the Leading 
Settlers. 

(Map.) 
The numbers on the map indicate the positions of 
the home lots of the leading settlers in the half-mile 
square. 

1. Governor Theophilus Eaton. 

2. Reverend John Davenport. 

3. Stephen Goodyear, a leading merchant and 

Deputy Governor of the colony. He died in 
England. 

4. Matthew Gilbert, a prominent officer in church 

and state. The rough gravestone back of the 
Center Church marked " M. G. 8o " is thought 
to indicate his burial place. 

5. Nathanael Turner, captain of the train band. 

6. Ezekiel Cheever, the school master. 

7. Richard Malbon, a prominent merchant and cap- 

tain of the militia. 



196 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

8. David Yale, the father of EHhu Yale. 

9. Where John Dixwell. the Regicide, lived. 

10. George Lamberton, the sea captain. 

11. Thomas Gregson. 

12. Isaac Allerton, who came over in the May- 

flower to Plymouth, Massachusetts, and later 
moved to New Haven. He built a " grand 
house with four porches." A tablet on the cor- 
ner of Union and Fair streets marks the site 
of his house. He lies buried somewhere on 
the Green. 

13. James Hillhouse. 

14. Roger Sherman. 

15. Noah Webster. 

16. Eli Whitney. 

17. The oldest house. 

Page 51, No. 3. — Porringer. 

A porringer is a cup or bowl. In colonial days a 
silver porringer was considered a very valuable pos- 
session. Those given the Indians were probably 
wooden. 

Page 52, No. 4. — The Word Ye. 

"Ye" is an old way of printing "the" and should 
be pronounced the. The Y was used in place of an 
oM English letter called thorn. This letter was 
similar in shape to a Y. 

Page 54, No. 5. — King Philip's War. 

The only time New Haven was ever seriously 
threatened with an Indian attack was in the war with 



ii 





( 


^ro»( Street. 












^ ^-^i 




& 


:;« 










5 

7 


ti 

I'm 

■■'■ i 



^_ lis » 



E>^ Street. 



ti.:*;.LE."$t«is;..: 



1?^ 



Cliapel Street. 






3:-i a 

::::-:::i (.::zv::.: 
i i ;; 

"CriVnVSfeJiJCJ^.V.V; 




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j; 

■■'■ 10 



Ceome .Street. 




TiiK, II Ai.i'-Mii !•; siji:are. 



APPENDIX. 197 

King Philip and the Narragansetts in 1775. There 
was great alarm among the inhabitants and prepara- 
tions were made to fortify the town. A wooden 
palisade was built around the original square and the 
meeting house was fortified. Fortunately there was 
no occasion to use these defences, and a few years 
later the wood forming the palisade was sold. 

Page 65, No. 6. — Bandoleer. 

A bandoleer was a broad leather belt worn by sol- 
diers over the shoulder and across the breast. It 
usually supported the musket. 

Page 95. No. 7. — Judges' Cave. 

Whalley avenue, Dixwell avenue and Goflfe street, 
all leading from Broadway toward West Rock and the 
Judges' Cave, are named after the three Regicides. 
The top of the Rock and the woods surrounding the 
old cave now form a beautiful park. On the face 
of one of the great boulders forming the cave, the 
Society of Colonial Wars has had placed a bronze 
tablet bearing the inscription: 

JUDGES' CAVE. 
" Here May 15, 1661 and for some weeks thereafter 
Edward Whalley and his son-in-law, William Goffe, 
members of Parliament, General officers in the army 
of the Commonwealth and signers of the death war- 
rant of King Charles I found shelter and conceal- 
ment from the officers of the Crown after the restora- 
tion." 

" Opposition to tyrants is obedience to God." 

The most direct road to Judges' Cave lies out 



198 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Whalley avenue to Westville, thence by Springside 
Home to the park. An excellent road with a gentle 
slope winds through the park to the cave and preci- 
pice. The cave may also be reached by a foot path 
from the base of the Rock affording a fine view of 
the city and surrounding country. 

Page 125, No. 8. — The Lancasterian School. 

Another famous school of old New Haven was the 
Lancasterian school which was organized by Mr. 
John E. Lovell in 1822. It was conducted under the 
monitor system, the older scholars teaching the 
younger ones. For several years the schqol was held 
in the basement of the Metho.dist church which stood 
on the Green. In 1827 this school was moved to a 
large new building erected for its use on a lot given 
by Mr. Titus Street. This was in time removed to 
make room for the Hillhouse High School. The 
monitor system, has long since given way to the 
modern graded schools. 

Page 132, No. 9. — Yale University. 

Guides may be secured free of charge to conduct 
visitors about the college campus and the buildings of 
the University every hour of the day during vacation. 

Page 141, No. 10. — Names of the Streets. 

The names of the streets of a city are often an 
index to its history. This is true of New Haven. 
State street was called Queen street before the Revo- 
lution. After the organization of the State govern- 
ment it was changed to State street. George street 



APPENDIX. I 99 

was named after King George of England and never 
changed. Grove street received its name from the 
numerous groves near the Hillhouse estate. The 
first ehns were set out on Elm street, hence its name. 
Several churches stood on the street named Church 
street. Davenport avenue, Whitney avenue, Hill- 
house avenue, Wooster street, and others, remind us 
of the prominent men of earlier days. 

Page 141, No. 11. — Hillhouse Avenue. 

The debt which New Haven and the State of Con- 
necticut owes to James Hillhouse can never be for- 
gotten. In 1792 as a part of his work of beautifying 
the city, Mr. Hillhouse laid out the avenue which 
bears his name. It is one-quarter of a mile long and 
over a hundred feet wide. It was at first called Tem- 
ple avenue and was a private street until 1862. For 
fourteen years after the adoption of the Federal Con- 
stitution, Mr. Hillhouse was Senator of the United 
States. In 1809 he gave up his senatorship and spent 
fifteen years in placing on a firm foundation the school 
fund of the State of Connecticut. In accomplishing 
this object he was untiring, brave and upright. In 
his complexion and features Mr. Hillhouse resem- 
bled an Indian and people used to call him the 
" Sachem." Hence the name Sachem street at the 
head of Hillhouse avenue. It was jokingly said that 
he kept a hatchet under the papers on his desk. He 
acted as treasurer of Yale College from 1782 until 
his death, which occurred in 1832. Sachem's Woods 
at the head of Hillhouse avenue, although private 
grounds, have always been free to any who use them 
properly and are a favorite resort of children. 



200 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Page 141, No. 12. — Elm City. 

The first person to give the name " Elm City " to 
New Haven is said to have been a woman. Louise 
Caroline Huggins, who was a writer of the i8th cen- 
tury. 

Page 143, No. 13. — The Nathan Beers Elm. 

This old elm stands at the foot of Hillhouse ave- 
nue and is at present the largest and tallest old elm 
in the city. It is gradually dying and will need to be 
removed before very long. It is named after Na- 
than Beers, a patriot of the Revolution, because his 
home was near it. Mr. Beers became quite deaf in 
his old age. The soldiers of the city often went to 
his house to salute him. On one occasion he ad- 
dressed them as follows: "Boys, I can't hear your 
guns, but your powder smells good." 

Page 145, No. 14. — The Grove Street Cemetery. 

The Grove Street Cemetery is one of the most 
famous of the older burial grounds in New England, 
not only because of the noted persons buried there, 
but because it was the first one in the world to be 
divided into " family lots." It contains seventeen 
acres. Cedar avenue is known as the " famous row." 
There are the graves of Jedidiah Morse, the father 
of American Geography; Eli Whitney, the inventor 
of the cotton gin; Noah Webster, the author of Web- 
ster's Dictionary; Charles Goodyear, the inventor of 
a process which made rubber useful to mankind; 
Roger Sherman, who signed the Declaration of In- 
dependence; Admiral Foote, a hero of the Civil War; 



APPENDIX. 201 

Benjamin Silliman and James Dana, famous scien- 
tists; Theodore Winthrop, New Haven's first martyr 
in the Civil War; Nathan Beers, a patriot of the 
Revolution; Woolsey, Twining, Dwight, Hadley, Por- 
ter, Gibbs and Loomis, famous scholars; Lyman 
Beecher and Leonard Bacon, noted preachers; and 
many others whose labors and sacrifices for God and 
their country have won them lasting fame and grati- 
tude. 

Page 145. No. 15. — The Center Church Crypt. 

There are one hundred and forty tombstones in the 
crypt of this church, all dated before 1797. The crypt 
is open to the public on Saturdays in the afternoon 
but may be visited at other times by applying to the 
Sexton of the church. 

Page 149, No. 16. — David Wooster. 

David Wooster was another New Haven patriot 
of the Revolution. He commanded a regiment which 
left New Haven in June, 1775. Before the soldiers 
marched away Colonel Wooster led them into the 
meeting house on the Green and sent for the minister, 
Reverend Jonathan Edwards, to pray with them. Mr. 
Edwards was not at home. So Wooster himself step- 
ped to the front of the pulpit and prayed for his 
country, his men and himself. 

Page 149, No. 17. — Benedict Arnold's Sign. 

The sign which hung over Benedict Arnold's store 
in New Haven may be seen in the rooms of the New 



202 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Haven Colony Historical Society on Grove street. 
It reads: 

B. Arnold Druggist 

Book-Seller &c 

From London 

Sibi Totique. 

Page 156, No. 18. — William Campbell. 

A monument on the top of Milford Hill marks the 
grave of this gallant young officer. It bears the fol- 
lowing appropriate inscription: 

Adjutant William Campbell 

Fell during the British invasion of New Haven, 

July 5, 1779. 

Blessed are the merciful. 

The site of the monument can easily be reached by 
the Allingtown trolley to the foot of Milford Hill. 
In an open lot at the top of the hill is a signboard 
directing to the monument. From this hill one may 
obtain a view of the West Bridge and the causeway 
across the meadows. 

A dressing case used by Adjutant Campbell may be 
seen at the rooms of the Historical Society on Grove 
street. 

Pacz 160, No. 19. — Fort Hale and Beacon Hill. 

Fort Hale was at first known as Black Rock Fort. 
It lies on the Morris Cove road and is now in ruins. 
The name of Beacon Hill was changed to Fort 
Wooster and is in Fort Wooster Park. Although at 
one time well provided with cannon, neither fort was 



APPENDIX. 203 

ever used against an enemy. Fort Hale and Beacon 
Hill may be reached by the trolley to Lighthouse 
Point. 

Page 173, No. 20. — The Farmington Canal. 

This canal was dug from New Haven to Farming- 
ton and was opened in 1825. Great things were ex- 
pected of it at the beginning. New Haven people 
spent one hundred thousand dollars on it, and Mr. 
James Hillhouse dug the first spade full of earth. 
The water was let in from the Farmington river. 
It was a long time before it reached New Haven, 
for, there were many leaks in the banks of the canal. 
It was a favorite route of travel to Hartford. The 
building of the railroads soon after this canal was 
completed, destroyed its usefulness. It has long pro- 
vided a bed for the North Hampton railroad and 
saved New Haven the expense of abolishing grade 
crossings. Above Mt. Carmel the railroad still fol- 
lows the tow path of the old canal. 

No. 21. — Eli Whitney. 

Eli Whitney was graduated from Yale College in 
1792 and went to Georgia to teach. While there he 
invented a machine for separating cotton from the 
seed which is known as the cotton gin (or engine). 
The machine was stolen from Whitney and he was 
unable to secure any benefits from his patents on it, 
because of frauds by the cotton planters. In 1798 
he came to New Haven and built a factory for the 
manufacture of fire-arms for the United States gov- 
ernment. The plant was situated at what is now 



204 STORIES OF OLD NEW HAVEN. 

Whitneyville. The method used by Mr. Whitney in 
the manufacture of guns was entirely new at that time 
and thought to be impracticable. No workman in 
the shop made a whole gun but each one made some 
particular part and then the parts were put together. 
This method of manufacture revolutionized industry 
and was a more important contribution to civiliza- 
tion than the invention of the cotton gin. 

No. 22. — Old Houses. 

The oldest building in New Haven is the Ruther- 
ford warehouse on the east side of lower State street. 
It was built in 1665. The oldest dwelling house is on 
Meadow street and was built in 1684. The Benedict 
Arnold house is on Water street near Fair street, 
and is now used as a shed. Noah Webster lived in it 
at one time, and began his dictionary there. Web- 
ster later moved to the Trowbridge house on the cor- 
ner of Grove and Temple streets. Number 261 
George street is the old Lyman Beecher house and 
was built in 1764. The house numbered 247 Church 
street was built before 1760 and was known as the 
old Cofifee House. The home of Roger Sherman is 
on Chapel street next to Warner Hall, and is now 
used for stores. The oldest brick house is known as 
the " Pinto House," 535 State street and was built in 
1745. 



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